

















Class 


Ik 


<r" 


Book 




Copyright 1^?. 


a 


COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 
















AUTHOR’S EDITION 


WORKS OF 
ANTHONY HOPE 

With Preface and Notes 
by the Author, and 
Photogravure Illustration 


B A L I O L 

Limited to One Thousand 
Sets, of which this is 

Numb e r 



* 


































QUISANTE 


N O 


By ANTHONY HOP 


ILLUSTRATED 


OtM^liAAJb f 



D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
NEW YORK 




Mr 


TZ-3 
. H 3 l4 

a 

2 


THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two Copies Received 

OCT 3 (90S 

Copyright Entry 

/Cf 0 7- 

class Ai XXoI No ! 



Copyright, 1900, 1902, by 
A. H. HAWKINS 


All rights reserved 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

I. 

Dick Benyon’s Outsider 




PAGE 

1 

II. 

Moments 

, 




. 16 

III. 

Sandro’s Way . 

. 




. 31 

IV. 

He’s Coming ! 

. 




. 46 

V. 

Whimsy-Whamsies 

. 




. 65 

VI. 

On Duty Hill . 

. 




. 84 

VII. 

Advice from Aunt 

Maria 



. 101 

VIII. 

Contra Mundum 

. 




. 121 

IX. 

Lead Us Not . 

. 




. 138 

X. 

Practical Politics 

. 




. 156 

XI. 

Seventy-Seven and 

Susy 

SlNNETT 


. 177 

XII. 

A Highly Correct 

Attitude 



. 198 

XIII. 

Not Superhuman 





. 217 

XIV. 

Open Eyes 





. 237 

XV. 

A Strange Idea 





. 259 

XVI. 

The Irrevocable 





. 282 

XVII. 

Done For ? 





. 305 

XVIII. 

For Lack of Love P . 




. 326 

XIX. 

Death Defied . 





. 345 

XX. 

The Quiet Life To-Morrow 



. 362 

XXI. 

A Relict . 

# 

# 



. 379 










QUISANTE 


CHAPTER I 
DICK BENYON’S OUTSIDER 

A shrunken sallow old lady, dressed in rusty ill- 
shaped black and adorned with an evidently false 
“ front ” of fair hair, sat in a tiny flat whose windows 
overlooked Hyde Park from south to north. She 
was listening to a tall loose-built dark young man 
who walked restlessly about the little room as he 
jerked out his thoughts and challenged the expres- 
sion of hers. She had known him since he was a 
baby, had brought him up from childhood, had 
always served him, always believed in him, never 
liked him, never offered her love nor conciliated his. 
His father even, her only brother Raphael Quisante, 
she had not loved ; but she had respected Raphael. 
Alexander — Sandro, as she alone of all the world 
called him — she neither loved nor respected ; him 
she only admired and believed in. He knew his 
aunt’s feelings well enough ; she was his ally, not 
his friend; kinship bound them, not affection; for 
his brain’s sake and their common blood she was 
his servant, his heart she left alone. 

Thus aware of the truth, he felt no obligation 
l 


QUISANTE 

towards her, not even when, as now, he came to ask 
money of her; what else should she do with her 
money, where else lay either her duty or her incli- 
nation ? She did not love him, but he was her one 
interest, the only tie that united her with the living 
moving world and the alluring future years, more 
precious to her since she could see so few of them. 

44 1 don’t mean to make myself uncomfortable,” 
said Miss Quisante. 44 How much do you want ? ” 
He stopped and turned round quickly with a gleam 
of eagerness in his eyes, as though he had a vision 
of much wealth. 44 No, no,” she added with a 
surly chuckle, “the least you’ll take is the most 
I’ll give.” 

44 1 owe money.” 

44 Who to ? ” she asked, setting her cap uncom- 
promisingly straight. 44 Jews ? ” 

44 No. Dick Benyon.” 

“That money you’ll never pay. I shan’t con- 
sider that.” 

The young man’s eyes rested on her in a long 
sombre glance ; he seemed annoyed but not indig- 
nant, like a lawyer whose formal plea is brushed 
aside somewhat contemptuously by an impatient 
truth-loving judge. 

44 You’ve got five hundred a year or thereabouts,” 
she went on, 44 and no wife.” 

He threw himself into a chair ; his face broke into 
a sudden smile, curiously attractive, although neither 
sweet nor markedly sincere. 44 Exactly,” he said. 
44 No wife. Well, shall I get one with five hundred a 


DICK BENYON’S OUTSIDER 


year ? ” He laughed a little. “ An election any 
fine day would leave me penniless,” he added. 

“ There’s Dick Benyon,” observed the old lady. 

“ They talk about that too much already,” said 
Quisante. 

“ Come, Sandro, you’re not sensitive.” 

“ And Lady Richard hates me. Besides if you 
want to impress fools, you must respect their preju- 
dices. Give me a thousand a year ; for the present, 
you know.” 

He asked nearly half the old lady’s income ; she 
sighed in relief. “ Very well, a thousand a year,” 
she said. “ Make a good show with it. Live hand- 
somely. It’ll pay you to live handsomely.” 

A genuine unmistakable surprise showed itself on 
his face ; now there was even the indignation which 
a reference to non-payment of debts had failed to 
elicit. 

“ I shall do something with it, you might know 
that,” he said resentfully. 

“ Something honest, I mean.” 

« What ? ” 

“Well, something not criminal,” she amended, 
chuckling again. “ I’m sorry to seem to know you 
so well,” she added. 

“ Oh, we know one another pretty well,” said he 
with a nod. “Never the jam without the powder 
from you.” 

“ But always the jam,” said old Maria. “ And 
you’ll find the world a good deal like your aunt, 
Sandro.” 


3 


QUISANTE 

An odd half-cunning half-eager gleam shot across 
his eyes. 

“ A man finds the world what he makes it, he 
said. He rose, came and stood over her, and went 
on, laughing. “ But the devil makes an aunt once 
and for all, and won’t let one touch his handiwork. 

“ You can touch her savings, though! 

He blazed out into a sudden defiance. “ Oh, 
refuse if you like. I can manage without you. 
You’re not essential to me.” 

She smiled, her thin lips setting in a wry curve. 
Now and then it seemed hard that there could be 
no affection between her and the one being whom the 
course of events plainly suggested for her love. But, 
as Sandro said, they knew one another very well. 
In the result she felt entitled to assume no airs of 
superiority ; he had not been a dutiful or a grateful 
nephew, she had not been a devoted or a patient 
aunt ; as she looked back, she was obliged to re- 
member one or two occasions when he had driven 
or betrayed her into a severity of which she did not 
willingly think. This reflection dictated the words 
with which she met his outburst. 

“ You can tell your story on Judgment Day and 
I’ll tell mine,” she said. 46 Oh, neither of ’em will 
lose in the telling, I’ll be bound. Meanwhile let’s 
be ” 

“Friends?” he suggested with an obvious but 
not ill-natured sneer. 

“ Lord, no ! Whatever you like ! Banker and 
client, debtor and creditor, actor and audience? 

4 


DICK BENYONS OUTSIDER 

Take your choice — and send me your bank’s ad- 
dress.” 

He nodded slightly, as though he concluded a 
bargain, not at all as though he acknowledged a 
favour. Yet he remarked in a ruminative tone, “ I 
shall be very glad of the money.” 

A moment’s pause followed. Then Miss Quisante 
observed reluctantly, 

“ The only thing I ever care to know about you 
is what you’re planning, Sandro. Don’t I earn that 
by my thousand a year ? ” 

“Well, here you are. I’m started, thanks to 
Dick Benyon and myself. I’ve got my seat, I can 
go on now. But I’m an outsider still.” He paused 
a moment. “ I feel that ; Benyon feels it too. I 
want to obviate it a bit. I mean to marry.” 

“ An insider ? ” asked the old lady. She looked at 
him steadily. “Your taste’s too bad,” she said; he 
was certainly dressed in a rather bizarre way. “ And 
your manners,” she added. “ She won’t have you,” 
she ended. Quisante took no notice and seemed 
not to hear ; he stood quite still by the window, 
staring over the park. “ Besides she’ll know what 
you want her for.” 

He wheeled round suddenly and looked down at 
his aunt. His face was softer, the cunningness had 
gone from his smile, his eyes seemed larger, clearer, 
even (by a queer delusion of sight) better set and 
wider apart. 

“Yes, I’ll show her that,” he said in a low voice, 
with a new richness of tone. 

5 


QUISANTE 

Old Maria looked up at him with an air of sur- 
prise. 

“ You do want her for that ? As a help, I mean ? ” 
she asked. 

His lips just moved to answer “Yes.” Aunt 
Maria’s eyes did not leave his face. She remem- 
bered that when he had come before to talk about 
contesting the seat in Parliament he had now won, 
there had been a moment (poised between long 
periods of calculation and elaborate forecasts of 
personal advantage) in which his face had taken on 
the same soft light, the same inspiration. 

“You odd creature!” she murmured gently. 
“ She’s handsome, I suppose ? ” 

“ Superb — better than that.” 

“ A swell ? ” asked old Maria scornfully. 

“ Yes,” he nodded. 

His aunt laughed. 4 ‘ A Queen among women ? ” 
was the form her last question took. 

“An Empress,” said Alexander Quisante, the 
more ornate title bursting gorgeously from his lips. 

“ Just the woman for you then ! ” remarked Aunt 
Maria. A stranger would have heard nothing in 
her tone save mockery. Quisante heard more, or 
did not hear that at all. He nodded again quite 
gravely, and turned back to the window. There 
were two reasonable views of the matter ; either the 
lady was not what Quisante declared her, or if she 
were she would have nothing to do with Quisante. 
But Aunt Maria reserved her opinion; she was 
prepared to find neither of these alternatives correct. 

6 


DICK BENYON’S OUTSIDER 


For there was something remarkable about San- 
dro ; the knowledge that had been hers so long 
promised fair to become the world’s discovery. 
Society was travelling towards Aunt Maria’s opin- 
ion, moved thereto not so much by a signally suc- 
cessful election fight, nor even by a knack of dis- 
tracting attention from others and fixing it on 
himself, as by the monstrous hold the young man 
had obtained and contrived to keep over Dick 
Benyon. Dick was not a fool ; here ended his like- 
ness to Quisante ; here surely ought to end his 
sympathy with that aspiring person? But there 
was much more between them ; society could see 
that for itself, while doubters found no difficulty in 
overhearing Lady Richard’s open lamentations. 
“ If Dick had known him at school or at Cam- 
bridge ” “ If he was somebody very distin- 
guished ” “ If he was even a gentleman ” 

Eloquent beginnings of unfinished sentences flowed 
with expressive freedom from Amy Benyon’s pretty 
lips. “ I don’t want to think my husband mad,” she 
observed pathetically to Weston Marchmont, him- 
self one of the brightest hopes of that party which 
Dick Benyon was understood to consider in need 
of a future leader. W as that leader to be Quisante? 
Manners, not genius, Amy declared to be the first 
essential. “ And I don’t believe he’s got genius,” 
she added hopefully ; that he had no manners did 
not need demonstration to Marchmont, whose own 
were so exquisite as to form a ready-make standard. 

And it was not only Dick. Jimmy was as bad. 

7 


QUISANTE 

Nobody valued Jimmy’s intellect, but every one 
had been prepared to repose securely on the bed- 
rock of his prejudices. He was as infatuated as his 
brother; Quisante had swept away the prejudices. 
The brethren were united in an effort to foist their 
man into every circle and every position where he 
seemed to be least wanted ; to this end they 
devoted time, their social reputation, enthusiasm, 
and, as old Maria knew, hard money. They were 
triple-armed in confidence. Jimmy met remon- 
strances with a quiet shrug ; Dick had one answer, 
always the same, given in the same way — a confi- 
dent assertion, limited and followed, an instant 
later, by one obvious condition, seemingly not nec- 
essary to express. “You’ll see, if he lives,” he 
replied invariably, when people asked him what 
there was after all in Mr. Quisante. Their friends 
could only wonder, asking plaintively what the 
Duke thought of his brothers’ proceedings. The 
Duke, however, made no sign ; making no sign 
ranked as a characteristic of the Duke’s. 

When Lady Richard discussed this situation 
with her friends, the Gaston girls, she gained hearty 
sympathy from Fanny, but from May no more 
than a mocking half- sincere curiosity. 

“ Is it possible for a man to like both me and 
Mr. Quisante?” Lady Richard asked. “And 
after all Dick does like me very much.” 

“ Likes both his wife and Mr. Quisante ! What 
a man for paradoxes ! ” May murmured. 

“ Jimmy’s worse if anything,” the aggrieved wife 
8 


DICK BENYON’S OUTSIDER 


went on. This remark was levelled straight at 
Fanny; Jimmy being understood to like Fanny, a 
parallel problem presented itself. Fanny recog- 
nised it, but not choosing to acknowledge Jimmy’s 
devotion, met it by referring to Marchmont’s open- 
ly professed inability to tolerate Quisantd 

“I always goby Mr. Marchmont’s judgment in 
a thing like that,” she said. 44 He’s infallible.” 

44 There’s no need of infallibility, my dear,” ob- 
served Lady Richard irritably. 44 Ordinary com- 
mon sense is quite enough.” She turned suddenly 
on May. 44 You talked to him for nearly an hour 
the other night,” she said. 

44 Yes — how you could!” sighed Fanny. 

44 1 couldn’t help it. He talked to me.” 

44 About those great schemes that he’s filled 
poor dear Dick’s head with? Not that I doubt 
he’s got plenty of schemes — of a sort you know.” 

44 He didn’t talk schemes,” said Lady May. 44 He 
was worse than that.” 

44 What did he do ? ” asked her sister. 

44 Flirted.” 

A sort of gasp broke from Lady Richard’s lips ; 
she gazed helplessly at her friends. Fanny began 
to laugh. May preserved a meditative seriousness ; 
she seemed to be reviewing Quisante’s efforts in a 
judicial spirit. 

“Well?” said Lady Richard after the proper 
pause. 

44 Oh well, he was atrocious, of course,” May ad- 
mitted ; her tone, however, expressed a reluctant 
9 


QUISANTE 

homage to truth rather than any resentment. 
44 He doesn’t know how to do it in the least.” 

44 He doesn’t know how to do anything,” Lady 
Richard declared. 

44 Most men are either elephantine or serpentine,” 
said Fanny. 44 Which was he, dear ? ” 

44 1 don’t think either.” 

44 Porcine?” asked Lady Richard. 

44 No, I haven’t got an animal for him. Well, 

yes, he was a little weaselly perhaps. But ” 

She glanced at Lady Richard as she paused, and 
then appeared to think that she would say no 
more ; she frowned slightly and then smiled. 

44 1 like his cheek!” exclaimed Fanny with a 
simplicity that had survived the schoolroom. 

Lady Richard screwed her small straight features 
into wrinkles of disgust and a shrug seemed to run 
all over her little trim smartly-gowned figure ; no 
presumption could astonish her in Quisante. 

44 Why in the world did you listen to him, 
May ? ” Fanny went on. 

44 He interested me. And every now and then 
he was objectionable in rather an original way.” 

With another shrug, inspired this time by her 
friend’s mental vagaries, Lady Richard diverged to 
another point. 

44 And that was where you were all the time 
W es t° n Marchmont was looking for you?” she 
asked. 

May began to laugh. 44 Somehow I’m generally 
somewhere else when Mr. Marchmont looks for 
10 


DICK BENYON’S OUTSIDER 


me,” she said. “ It isn’t deliberate, really ; I like 
him very much, but when he comes near me, some 
perverse fate seems to set my legs moving in the 
opposite direction.” 

“Well, Alexander Quisant^’s a perverse fate, if 
you like,” said Lady Richard. 

“It’s curious how there are people one’s like 
that towards. You’re very fond of them, but it 
seems quite certain that you’ll never get much 
nearer to them. Is it fate ? Or is it that in the 
end there’s a — a solution of sympathy, a break 
somewhere, so that you stop just short of finding 
them absolutely satisfying ? ” 

Neither of her friends answered her. Lady 
Richard did not deal in speculations; Fanny pre- 
ferred not to discuss, even indirectly, her sister’s 
feelings towards Marchmont; they bred in her a 
mixture of resentment and relief too complicated 
for public reference. It was certainly true enough 
that he and May got no nearer to one another; if 
the break referred to existed somewhere, its effect 
was very plain; how could it display itself more 
strikingly than in making the lady prefer Quisante’s 
weaselly flirtation to the accomplished and enviable 
homage of Weston Marchmont? And preferred 
it she had, for one hour of life at least. Fanny 
felt the anger which we suffer when another shows 
indifference towards what we should consider great 
good fortune. 

But indifference was not truly May’s atti- 
tude towards Marchmont. Nobody, she honestly 

11 


QUISANTE 

thought, could be indifferent to him, to his hand- 
someness, his grace and refinement, the fine tem- 
per of his mind, his indubitable superiority of in- 
tellect; in everything he was immeasurably above 
the ordinary run of her acquaintance, the well- 
groomed inconsiderables of whom she knew such 
a number. Being accustomed to look this world 
in the face unblinkingly, she did not hesitate to 
add that he possessed great wealth and the pros- 
pect of a high career. He was all, and indeed 
rather more, than she, widowed Lady Attlebridge’s 
slenderly dowered daughter, had any reason to ex- 
pect. She wanted to expect no more, if possible 
really to regard this opportunity as greater luck 
than she had a right to anticipate. The dissatis- 
faction which she sought to explain by talking of a 
solution of sympathy was very obstinate, but jus- 
tice set the responsibility down to her account, not 
to his; analysing her temperament, without ex- 
cusing it, she found a spirit of adventure and ex- 
periment — or should she say of restlessness and 
levity? — which Marchmont did not minister to 
nor yet assuage. The only pleasure that lay in 
this discovery came from the fact that it was so 
opposed to the general idea about her. For it was 
her lot to be exalted into a type of the splendid 
calm patrician maiden. In that sort of vein her 
friends spoke of her when they were not very in- 
timate, in that sort of language she saw herself 
described in gushing paragraphs that chronicled 
the doings of her class. Stately, gracious, even 
12 


DICK BENYON’S OUTSIDER 


queenly, were epithets which were not spared her; 
it would have been refreshing to find some Diogenes 
of a journalist who would have called her, in round 
set terms, discontented, mutinous, scornful of the 
ideal she represented, a very hot-bed of the faults 
the beauty of whose absence was declared in her 
dignified demeanour. Now what May looked, that 
Fanny was; but poor Fanny, being slight of build, 
small in feature, and gay in manner, got no credit 
for her exalted virtues and could not be pressed 
into service as the type of them. For certainly 
types must look typical. May’s comfort in these 
circumstances was that Marchmont’s perfect breed- 
ing and instinctive avoidance of display, of absurd- 
ity, even of betraying any heat of emotion, saved 
her from the usual troubles which an unsatisfied 
lover entails on his mistress. He looked for her 
no doubt, but with no greater visible perturbation 
than if she had been his handkerchief. 

An evening or two later Dick Benyon took her 
in to dinner. Entirely in concession to him — for 
the subject had passed from her own thoughts — 
she asked, “ W ell, how’s your genius going on ? ” 
Before the meal was over she regretted her ques- 
tion. It opened the doors to Dick’s confused elo- 
quence and vague laudations of his protege ; put- 
ting Dick on his defence, it involved an infinite 
discussion of Quisante. She was told how Dick 
had picked him up at Naples, gone to Pompeii 
with him, travelled home with him, brought him 
and Jimmy together, and how the three had be- 
2 13 


QUISANTE 

come friends. “And if I’m a fool, my brother’s 
not,” said Dick. May knew that Jimmy would 
shelter himself under a plea couched in identical 
language. From this point Dick became less ex- 
pansive, for at this point his own benefactions and 
services had begun. She could not get much out 
of him, but she found herself trying to worm out 
all she could. Dick had no objection to saying that 
he had induced Quisante to go in for politics, and 
had “ squared ” the influential persons who distrib- 
uted (so far as a free electorate might prove docile) 
seats in Parliament. Rumour and Aunt Maria 
would have supplemented his statement by telling 
of substantial aid given by the Benyon brothers. 
May, interested against her wish and irritated at her 
interest, yet not content, like Dick’s wife, to shrug 
away Dick’s aberrations, turned on him with a sud- 
den, “ But why, why? Why do you like him ? ” 

“ Like him ! ” repeated Dick half-interrogatively. 
He did not seem sure that his companion had 
chosen the right, or at any rate the best, word to 
describe his feelings. In response she amended 
her question. 

“ Well, I mean, what do you see in him ? ” 

Here was another fatal question, for Dick saw 
everything in him. Hastily cutting across the 
eulogies, she demanded particulars — who was he, 
where did he come from, and so forth. On these 
heads Dick’s account was scanty; Quisante’s father 
had grown wine in Spain ; and Quisante himself 
had an old aunt in London. 

14 


DICK BENYON’S OUTSIDER 


“Not much of a genealogy,” she suggested. 
Dick was absurd enough to quote “ Je suis un 
ancetre .” “Oh, if you’re as silly as that ! ” she ex- 
claimed with an annoyed laugh. 

“ He’s the man we want.” 

“ You and Jimmy ? ” 

“ The country,” Dick explained gravely. He had 
plenty of humour for other subjects, but Quisante, 
it seemed, was too sacred. “ Look here,” he went 
on. 6 4 Come and meet him again. Amy’s going 
out of town next week and we’ll have a little party 
for him.” 

“ That happens best when Amy’s away ? ’ 

“ W ell, women are so ” 

“ Yes, I know. I’m a woman. I won’t come.” 

Dick looked at her not sourly but sadly, and 
turned to his other neighbour. May was left to sit 
in silence for five minutes ; then a pause in Dick’s 
talk gave her time to touch him lightly on the arm 
and to say when he turned, “ Yes, I will, and thank 
you.” 

But she said nothing about the weaselly flirtation. 


15 


CHAPTER II 


MOMENTS 

At the little dinner which Lady Richard’s absence 
rendered more easy there were only the Benyon 
brothers (a wag had recently suggested that they 
should convert themselves into Quisante Limited), 
Mrs. Gellatly, Morewood the painter, and the 
honoured guest. Morewood was there because he 
was painting a kit-cat of Quisante for the host 
(Heaven knew in what corner Lady Richard would 
suffer it to hang), and Mrs. Gellatly because she 
had expressed a desire to meet Lady May Gaston. 
Quisante greeted May with an elaborate air of re- 
membrance ; his handshake was so ornate as to per- 
suade her that she must always hate him, and that 
Dick Benyon was as foolish as his wife thought 
him. This mood lasted half through dinner; the 
worst of Quisante was uppermost, and the exhibition 
depressed the others. The brothers were apologetic, 
Mrs. Gellatly gallantly suave ; her much-lined, still 
pretty face worked in laborious smiles at every loud- 
ness and every awkwardness. Morewood was so 
savage that an abrupt conclusion of the entertain- 
ment threatened to be necessary. May, who had 
previously decided that Mr. Quisante would be 
much better in company, was travelling to the con- 
clusion that he was not nearly so trying when 
36 


MOMENTS 


alone ; to be weaselly is not so bad as to be incon- 
siderate and ostentatious. 

Just then came the change which transformed the 
party. Somebody mentioned Mahomet; More- 
wood, with his love of a paradox, launched on an 
indiscriminate championship of the Prophet. Next 
to believing in nobody, it was best, he said, to 
believe in Mahomet; there, he maintained, you 
got most out of your religion and gave least to 
it; and he defended the criterion with his usual 
uncompromising aggressiveness. Then Quisant£ 
put his arms on the table, interrupted More- 
wood without apology, and began to talk. May 
thought that she would not have known how good 
the talk was — for it came so easily — had she not 
seen how soon Morewood became a listener, or even 
a foil, ready and content to put his questions not 
as puzzles but as provocatives. Yet Morewood was 
proverbially conceited, and he was fully a dozen 
years Quisantd’s senior. She stole a look round; 
the brothers were open-mouthed, Mrs. Gellatly 
looked almost frightened. Next her eyes scanned 
Quisante’s face; he was not weaselly now, nor 
ostentatious. His subject filled him and lit him up ; 
she did not know that he looked as he had when he 
spoke to old Maria of his Empress among women, 
but she knew that he looked as if nothing mentally 
small, nothing morally mean, nothing that was not 
in some way or other, for good or evil, big and spa- 
cious could ever come near him from without or 
proceed out from him. 


17 


QU IS ANTE 

She was immensely startled when, in a pause, 
her host whispered in her ear, “ One of his mo- 
ments ! ” The phrase was to become very famil- 
iar to her on the lips of others, even more in her 
own thoughts. “ His moments ! ” It implied a 
sort of intermittent inspiration, as though he were 
some ancient prophet or mediaeval fanatic through 
whose mouth Heaven spoke sometimes, leaving 
him for the rest to his own low and carnal nat- 
ure. The phrase meant at once a plenitude of 
inspiration and a rarity of it. Not days, nor hours, 
but moments were seemingly what his friends 
valued him for, what his believers attached their 
faith to, what must (if anything could) outweigh all 
that piled the scales so full against him. An intense 
curiosity then and there assailed her ; she must 
know more of the man ; she must launch a boat on 
this unexplored ocean — for the Benyons had not 
navigated it, they only stood gaping on the beach. 
Here was scope for that unruly spirit of hers which 
Marchmont’s culture and Marchmont’s fascination 
could neither minister to nor assuage. 

She was gazing intently at Quisante when she 
became conscious of Mrs. Gellatly’s eyes on her. 
Mrs. Gellatly looked frightened still ; accustomed 
tactfully to screen awkwardness, she was rather at 
a loss in the face of naked energy. She sought to 
share her alarm with May Gaston, but May was like 
a climber fronted by a mountain range. 

“You may be right and you may be wrong,” 
said Morewood. “At least I don’t know any- 
18 


MOMENTS 

body who can settle the quarrel between facts and 
dreams.” 

“ There isn’t any quarrel.” 

“ There’s a little stiffness anyhow,” urged More- 
wood, still unwontedly docile. 

“ They’d get on better if they saw more of one 
another,” suggested May timidly. It was her first 
intervention. She felt its insignificance. She 
would not have complained if Quisante had fol- 
lowed More wood’s example and taken no notice of 
it. He stopped, turned to her with exaggerated 
deference, and greeted her obvious little carrying 
out of the metaphor as though it were a heaven-sent 
light. Somehow in doing this he seemed to fall all 
in an instant from lofty heights to depths almost 
beyond eyesight. While he complimented her 
elaborately, Morewood turned away in open impa- 
tience. Another topic was started, the conversa- 
tion was killed ; or, to put it as she put it to her- 
self, that moment of Quisante’s was ended. Did 
his moments always end like that ? Did they fade 
before a breath, like the frailest flower ? Did the 
contemptible always follow in a flash on the en- 
trancing ? 

Presently she found a chance for a whisper to 
Morewood. 

“ How are you painting him ? ” she asked. 

“You must come and see,” he replied, with a 
rather sour grin. 

“ So I will, but tell me now. You know the 
difference, I mean ? ” 


19 


QUISANTE 

“ Oh, and do you already ? W ell, I shall do him 
making himself agreeable to a lady.” 

“ For heaven’s sake don’t ! ” she whispered, half- 
laughing yet not without seriousness. The man 
was a malicious creature and might well caricature 
what he was bound to idealise to the extreme limit 
of nature’s sufferance. Such a trick would be 
hardly honest to Dick Benyon, but Morewood 
would plead his art with unashamed effrontery, 
and, if more were needed, tell Dick to take his 
cheque to the deuce and go with it himself. 

The rest of the party was, to put it bluntly, a 
pleasant little gathering in no way remarkable and 
rather spoilt by the presence of one person who was 
not quite a gentleman. May struggled hard against 
the mercilessness of the j udgment contained in the 
last words ; for it ought to have proved quite final 
as regarded Alexander Quisante. As a fact it 
would not leave her mind, it established an abso- 
lutely sure footing in her convictions ; and yet it 
did not seem quite final in regard to Quisante. 
Perhaps Dick Benyon would maintain the proud 
level of his remark about the genealogy, and re- 
mind her that somebody settled Napoleon’s claims 
by the same verdict. But one did not meet Na- 
poleon at little dinners, nor think of him with no 
countervailing achievements to his name. 

Her mind was so full of the man that when she 
joined her mother at a party later in the evening, 
she had an absurd anticipation that everybody 
would talk to her about him. Nobody did ; that 
20 


MOMENTS 


evening an Arctic explorer and a new fortune-teller 
divided the attention of the polite ; men came and 
discussed one or other of these subjects with her 
until she was weary. For once then, on March- 
mont making an appearance near her, her legs did 
not carry her in the opposite direction ; she awaited 
and even invited his approach ; at least he would 
spare her the fashionable gossip, and she thought 
he might tell her something about Quisante. In 
two words he told her, if not anything about Qui- 
sante, still everything that he himself thought of 
Quisante. 

“ I met Mr. Quisante at dinner,” she said. 

“ That fellow ! ” exclaimed Marchmont. 

The tone was full of weariness and contempt ; it 
qualified the man as unspeakable and dismissed him 
as intolerable. Was Marchmont infallible, as Fanny 
had said ? At least he represented, in its finest and 
most authoritative form, the opinion of her own 
circle, the unhesitating judgment against which she 
must set herself if she became Quisante’s champion. 
It would be much easier, and probably much more 
sensible, to fall into line and acquiesce in the con- 
demnation ; then it would matter nothing whether 
the vulgar did or did not elect to admire Dick Ben- 
yon’s peculiar friend. Yet a protest stirred within 
her ; only her sense of the ludicrous prevented her 
from adopting Dick’s word and asking Marchmont 
if he had ever seen the fellow in one of his “ mo- 
ments.” But it would be absurd to catch up the 
phrase like that, and it was by no means certain 
21 


QUISANTE 

that even the moments would appeal to March- 
mont. 

Looking round, she perceived that a little space 
in the crowded room had been left vacant about 
them ; nobody came up to her, no woman, in pass- 
ing by, signalled to Marchmont ; the constant give- 
and-take of companions was suspended in their fa- 
vour. In fine, people supposed that they wanted to 
talk to one another ; it would not be guessed that 
one of the pair wished Quisante to be the topic. 

“ He’s got some brains,” Marchmont went on, 
“though of rather a flashy sort, I think. Dick 
Benyon’s been caught by them. But a more im- 
possible person I never met. You don’t like him ? ” 

“ Yes, I do,” she answered defiantly. “ At least 
I do every now and then.” 

“ Pray make the occasions as rare as possible,” he 
urged in his low lazy voice, with his pleasant smile 
and a confidential look in his handsome eyes. “ And 
don’t let them coincide with my presence.” 

‘ ‘ Really he won’t hurt you ; you’re too par- 
ticular.” 

“No, he won’t hurt me, but I should feel rather 
as though he were hurting you.” 

“ What do you mean ? ” 

“ By being near you, certainly by being anything 
in the least like a friend of yours.” 

“ He’d defile me ? ” she asked, laughing. 

“Yes,” said he seriously; the next moment he 
smiled and shrugged his shoulders; he did not 
withdraw his seriousness but he apologised for it. 

22 


MOMENTS 


“ Oh, I’d better get under a glass-case at once,” 
she exclaimed, laughing again impatiently. 

‘‘Yes, and lock it, and ” 

“ Give you the key ? ” 

He laughed as he said, “ The most artistic 
emotions have some selfishness in them, I ad- 
mit it.” 

“ It would make a little variety if I sent a dup- 
licate to Mr. Quisante ! ” 

Here he would not follow her in her banter. He 
grew grave and even frowned, but all he said was, 
“ Really there are limits, you know.” It was her 
own verdict, expressed more tersely, more com- 
pletely, and more finally. There were limits, and 
Alexander Quisante was beyond them ; the barrier 
they raised could not be surmounted ; he could not 
fly over it even on the wings of his moments. 

“ You above everybody oughtn’t to know such 
people,” Marchmont went on. 

Now he was thinking of the type she was sup- 
posed to represent ; that was the fashion in which 
it was appropriate to talk to the type. 

“ I’m not in the very least like that really,” she 
assured him. “If you knew me better, you’d find 
that out very soon.” 

“ I’m willing to risk it.” 

Flirtation for flirtation — and this conversation 
was becoming one — there could be no comparison 
between Marchmont’s and Quisante’s ; the one was 
delightful, the other odious ; the one combined 
charm with dignity ; the other was a mixture of 
23 


QUISANTE 

cringing and presumption. May put the contrast 
no less strongly than this as she yielded to the im- 
pulse of the minute and gave the lie to March- 
mont’s ideal of her by her reckless acceptance of 
the immediate delights he offered. The ideal 
would no doubt cause him to put a great deal of 
meaning into her acceptance ; whether such mean- 
ing were one she would be prepared to indorse her 
mood did not allow her to consider. She showed 
him very marked favour that evening, and in his 
company contrived to forget entirely the puzzle of 
Quisant£ and his moments, and the possible rela- 
tion of those moments to the limits about which 
her companion was so decisive. 

At last, however, they were interrupted. The 
interruption came from Dick Benyon, who had 
looked in somewhere else, and arrived now at the 
tail of the evening. Far too eager and engrossed in 
his great theme to care whether his appearance 
were welcome, he dashed up to May, crying out 
even before he reached her, “ W ell, what do you 
say about him now ? Wasn’t he splendid ? ” 

Clearly Dick forgot his earlier apologetic period ; 
for him the moment was the evening. A cool 
question from Marchmont, the cooler perhaps for 
annoyance, forced Dick into explanations, and he 
sketched in his summary fashion the incident which 
had aroused his enthusiasm and made him look 
so confidently for a response from May. March- 
mont was unreservedly and almost scornfully an- 
tagonistic. 


24 


MOMENTS 


“ Oh, you’re too cultivated to live,” cried Dick. 
“ Now, isn’t he too elegant, May?” 

“I’m not the least elegant,” said Marchmont, 
with quiet confidence. “ But I’m — well, I’m what 
Quisante isn’t. So are you, Dick.” 

“ Suppose we are, and by Jove, isn’t he what we 
aren’t? I’m primitive, I suppose. I think hands 
and brains are better than manners.” 

“I’ll agree, but I don’t like his hands or his 
brains either.” 

“ He’ll mount high.” 

“ As high as Hainan. I shouldn’t be the least 
surprised to see it.” 

“ Well, I’m not going to give him up because he 
doesn’t shake hands at the latest fashionable angle.” 

“ All right, Dick. And I’m not going to take him 
up because he’s a dab at rodomontade.” 

“ And you neither of you need fight about him,” 
May put in, laughing. They joined in her laugh, 
each excusing himself by good-natured abuse of the 
other. 

There was no question of a quarrel, but the 
divergence was complete, striking, and even start- 
ling. To one all was black, to the other all white ; 
to one all tin, to the other all gold. Was there 
no possibility of compromise? As she sat be- 
tween the two, May thought that a discriminating 
view of Quisante ought to be attainable, not an 
oscillation from disgust to admiration, but a well- 
balanced stable judgment which should allow full 
value to merits and to defects, and sum up the 
25 


QUISANTE 

man as a whole. Something of the sort she tried 
to suggest; neither disputant would hear of it, and 
Marchmont went off, with an unyielding assertion 
that the man was a cad, no more and no less than 
a cad. Dick looked after him with a well-satisfied 
air ; May fancied that opposition and the failure of 
others to understand intensified his satisfaction in 
his own discovery. But he grew mournful as he 
said to her, 

“ I sha’n’t have a chance with you now. You’ll 
go with Marchmont of course. And I did want you 
to like him.” 

“ Mr. Marchmont doesn’t control my opinions.” 

They were very old friends ; Dick allowed him- 
self a significant smile. 

“ I know what you mean,” she said, smiling. 
“ But it’s nonsense. Besides, look at yourself and 
Amy ! She hates him, and yet you ” 

“ Oh, she’s only half-serious, and Marchmont’s in 
deadly earnest under that deuced languid manner 
of his. I tell you what, he’s a very limited fellow, 
after all.” 

May laughed ; the limits were being turned to a 
new use now. 

“ Awfully clever and well-read, but shut up in- 
side a sort of compartment of life. Don’t you know 
what I mean ? He’s always ridden first-class, and 
he won’t believe there’s anybody worth knowing in 
the thirds.” 

“ You think he’s like that ? ” she asked thought- 
fully. 


26 


MOMENTS 


“You can see it for yourself. There’s no better 
fellow, no better friend, but, hang it, an oyster’s got 
a broader mind.” 

“ I like broad minds.” 

“ Then you’ll like Quis ” 

“Absolutely you shan’t mention that name 
again. Find mother for me and tell her to tell me 
that it’s time to go home.” 

Going home brought with it a discovery. May 
was considered to have invited the world to take 
notice of her preference for Marchmont. This 
fact was first conveyed to her by Lady Attle- 
bridge’s gently affectionate and congratulatory air ; 
at this May was little more than amused. Evi- 
dence of greater significance lay in Fanny’s de- 
meanour; she came into her sister’s room and 
talked for a while ; before leaving, but after the 
ordinary kiss of good-night, she came back sudden- 
ly and kissed her again ; she said nothing, but the 
embrace was emphatic and eloquent. It seemed 
to the recipient to be forgiving also ; it meant “ I 
want you to be happy, don’t imagine I think of 
anything else.” If Fanny kissed her like that, it 
was because Fanny supposed that she had made up 
her mind to marry Weston Marchmont. She was 
fully conscious that the inference was not a strange 
one to draw from her conduct that evening. But 
now the mood of impulse was entirely gone ; she 
considered the matter in a cool spirit, and her talk 
with Dick Benyon assumed unlooked-for impor- 
tance in her deliberations. To marry Marchmont 
27 


QUISANTE 

was a step entirely in harmony with the ideal 
which her family and the world had of her, which 
Marchmont himself most thoroughly and undoubt- 
ingly believed in. If she were really what she was 
supposed to be, the match would satisfy her as 
well as it would everybody else. But if she were 
quite different in her heart ? In that case it might 
indeed be urged that no marriage would or could 
permanently satisfy her or the whole of her nature. 
This was likely enough; to see how often some- 
thing of that kind happened it was, unfortunately, 
only necessary to run over ten or a dozen names 
which offered themselves promptly enough from 
the list of her acquaintance. Still to marry know- 
ing you would not be satisfied was to drop below 
the common fate of marrying knowing that you 
might not be ; it gave up the golden chance ; it 
abandoned illusion just where illusion seemed 
most necessary. 

Oh for life, for the movement of life ! It is per- 
haps hard to realise how often that cry breaks 
from the hearts of women. No doubt the aspi- 
ration it expresses is rather apt to end in antics, 
not edifying to the onlooker, hardly (it may be 
supposed) comforting to the performer. But the 
antics are one thing, the aspiration another, and 
they have the aspiration strongest who condemn 
and shun the antics. The matter may be stated 
very simply, at least if the form in which it pre- 
sented itself to May Gaston in her twenty-third 
year be allowed to suffice. Most girls are bred in 
28 


MOMENTS 


a cage, most girls expect to escape therefrom by 
marriage, most girls find that they have only 
walked into another cage. She had nothing to 
say, so far as her own case went, against the com- 
fort either of the old or of the new cage; they 
were both indeed luxurious. But cages they were 
and such she knew them to be. Doubtless there 
must be limits, not only to the tolerance of Wes- 
ton Marchmont and of society, but to everything 
else except infinity. But there are great expanses, 
wide spaces, short of infinity. When she walked 
out of her first cage, the one which her mother’s 
careful fingers had kept locked on her, she would 
like not to walk into another, but to escape into 
some park or forest, not boundless, yet so large as 
to leave room for exploring, for the finding of new 
things, for speculation, for doubt, excitement, un- 
certainty, even for the presence of apprehension 
and the possibility of danger. As she surveyed 
the manner in which she was expected to pass her 
life, the manner in which she was supposed (she 
faced now the common interpretation of her con- 
duct this evening) already to have elected to pass 
it, she felt as a speculator feels towards Consols, as 
a gambler towards threepenny whist. It seemed 
as though nothing could be good which did not 
also hold within it the potency of being very bad, 
as though certainty damned and chance alone had 
lures to offer. She would have liked to take life 
in her hand — however precious a thing, what use 
is it if you hoard it? — and see what she could 


QUISANTE 

make of it, what usury its free loan to fate and 
fortune would earn. She might lose it ; youth 
made light of the risk. She might crawl back in 
sad plight ; the Prodigal Son did not think of that 
when he set out. She found herself wishing she 
had nothing, that she might be free to start on the 
search for anything. 

Like Quisante ? Why, yes, just like Quisante. 
Like that strange, intolerable, vulgar, attractive, in- 
termittently inspired creature, who presented him- 
self at life’s roulette-table, not less various in his 
own person than were the varying turns he court- 
ed, unaccountable as chance, baffling as fate, change- 
able as luck. Indeed he was like life itself, a thing 
you loved and hated, grew weary of and embraced, 
shrank from and pursued. To see him then was in 
a way to look on at life, to be in contact with him 
was to feel the throb of its movement. In her 
midnight musings the man seemed somehow to 
cease to be odious because he ceased to be individ- 
ual, to be no longer incomprehensible because he 
was no longer apart, because he became to her less 
himself and more the expression and impersonation 
of an instinct that in her own blood ran riot and 
held festivity. 

“I’m having moments, like Mr. Quisante him- 
self! ” she said with a sudden laugh. 


30 


CHAPTER III 


SANDRO’S WAY 

First to the City, then to the doctor, then to the 
House, then to the dinner of the Imperial League ; 
this was Quisante’s programme for the second 
Wednesday in April. It promised a busy day. 
But of the doctor and the House he made light ; 
the first was a formality, the second held out no 
prospect of excitement; the City and the dinner 
were the real things. They were connected with 
and must be made to promote the two aims which 
he had taken for his with perfect confidence. He 
wanted money and he wanted position ; he saw 
no reason why he should not attain both in the 
fullest measure. Recent events had filled him with 
a sure and certain hope. Not allowing for the 
value of the good manners which he lacked, he 
failed to see that he excited any hostility or any 
distaste. Unless a man were downright rude to 
him, he counted him an adherent ; this streak of a 
not unpleasing simplicity ran across his varied nature. 
He was far from being alive to his disadvantages ; 
every hour assured him of his superiority. Most 
especially he counted on the aid and favour of 
women ; the future might prove him right or wrong 
in his expectation ; but he relied for its realisation 
not on the power which he did possess but on an 
31 


QUISANTE 

accomplishment of manner and an insinuating fas- 
cination which he most absolutely lacked. The 
ultra- civility which repelled May Gaston was less a 
device than an exhibition ; he embarked on it more 
because he thought he did it well than (as she sup- 
posed) from a desire to curry favour. He was ill- 
bred, but he was not mean ; he was a vaunter but 
not a coward ; he demanded adherence and did not 
beg alms. This was the attitude of his mind, but 
unhappily it was often apparently contradicted by 
the cringing of his body and the wheedling of his 
tongue. In attempting smoothness he fell into 
oiliness; where he aimed at polished brilliance, the 
result was blazing varnish. Had he known what to 
pray for, he would have supplicated heaven that he 
might meet eyes able to see the man beneath the 
ape. Such eyes, dimly penetrating with an unex- 
pected vision, he had won to his side in the Benyon 
brothers ; the rest of the world still stuck on the 
outside surface. But the brothers could only shield 
him, they could not change him ; they might pro- 
mote his fortunes, they could not cure his vices. 
He did not know that he had any vices ; the first 
stage of amendment was still to come. 

He had a cousin in the City, a stock-jobber, who 
made and lost large sums of money as fortune 
smiled or frowned. Quisante had the first five hun- 
dred of Aunt Maria s thousand pounds in his pocket 
and told his kinsman to use it for him. 

“A spec?” asked Mr. Josiah Mandeville. “Isn’t 
that rather rough on Aunt Maria ? ” 

32 


SANDRO’S WAY 


Quisante looked surprised. “ She gave it me, I 
haven’t stolen it,” he said with a laugh. 

“ She gave it you to live on, to keep up your po- 
sition, I suppose.” 

“ I don’t think she made any conditions. And if 
I can make money, I’ll give it back to her.” 

“ Oh, you know best, I suppose,” said Mande- 
ville. “ Only if I lose it ? ” 

“ Losing money’s no worse than spending it.” 
And then he mentioned a certain venture in which 
the money might usefully be employed. 

“ How did you hear of that ? ” asked Mandeville 
with a stare ; for his cousin had laid his finger on a 
secret, on the very secret which Mandeville had 
just decided not to reveal to him, kinsman though 
he was. 

“ I forget ; somebody said something about it 
that made me think it would be a good thing.” 
Quisante ’s tone was vaguely puzzled; he often 
knew things when he could give no account of his 
knowledge. 

“ Well, you aren’t far wrong. You’ll take a small 
profit, I suppose ? Shall I use my discretion ? ” 

“ No,” smiled Quisante. “ I sha’n’t take a small 
profit, and I’ll use mine. But keep me well in- 
formed and you sha’n’t be a loser.” 

Mr. Mandeville laughed. “One might think 
you had a million,” he observed. “ Or are you pro- 
posing to tip me a fiver ? ” The thought of his own 
thousands filled his tone with scorn ; he did not do 
his speculating with Aunt Maria’s money. 

33 


QUISANTE 

“ If you’re too proud, I can take my business 
somewhere else — and the name of the concern too,” 
said Quisante, lighting a cigar. Cousin Mandeville’s 
stare had not escaped his notice. 

Mandeville hesitated ; he was very much an- 
noyed ; he liked his money, if not himself, to be 
respected. But business is business, to say nothing 
of blood being thicker than water. 

“ Oh, well, I’ll do it for you,” he agreed with lofty 
benevolence. Quisante laughed. He would have 
covered his own retreat with much the same de- 
vice. 

The riches then were on the way ; Quisante had 
a far-seeing eye, and Aunt Maria’s five hundred was 
to imagination already prolific of thousands. A 
hansom carried him up to Harley Street ; he had 
been there three months before and had been told 
to come again in three weeks. The punishment for 
his neglect was a severe verdict. “No liquor, no 
tobacco, and three months’ immediate and complete 
rest.” Quisante laughed — very much as he had at 
his kinsman in the City. Both doctor and stock- 
jobber showed such a curious ignorance of the con- 
ditions under which his life had to be lived and of 
his reasons for caring to live it. 

“ What’s the matter then ? ” he asked. 

The doctor became very technical, though not 
quite unreserved ; the heart and the stomach were 
in some unholy conspiracy ; this was as much as 
Quisante really understood. 

“ And if I don’t do as you say ? ” he asked. The 
34 


SANDROS WAY 


doctor smiled and shrugged his shoulders. “ I 
shan’t outlive Methuselah anyhow, I suppose ? ” 

“ The present conditions of your life are very 
wearing,” said the doctor. 

Quisante looked at him thoughtfully. 

“ But if you’d live wisely, there’s no reason why 
you shouldn’t preserve good health till an advanced 
age.” 

Aunt Maria’s five hundred, invested in Consols, 
would bring in twelve pounds ten shillings or there- 
abouts every year for ever. 

“ Thank you,” said Quisante, rising and produc- 
ing the fee. But he paused before going and said 
meditatively, 44 I should really like to be able to 
follow your advice, you know.” His brow clouded 
in discontent ; the one serious handicap he recog- 
nised was this arbitrary unfortunate doom of a body 
unequal to the necessary strain of an active life. 
44 Anyhow I’m good for a little while ? ” he asked. 

44 Dear me, you’re in no sort of immediate dan- 
ger, Mr. Quisante, or I should be more imperative. 
Only pray give yourself a chance.” 

On his way from Harley Street to the House, 
and again from the House to his own rooms in Pall 
Mall, his mind was busy with the speech that he 
was to make at the dinner. He had only to respond 
to the toast of the guests ; few words and simple 
would be expected. He was thus the more re- 
solved on a great effort ; the surprise that the mere 
attempt at an oration would arouse should pave 
the way for the astonishment his triumph must 
35 


QUISANTE 

create. He had no rival in the programme; the 
Chairman was Dick Benyon, the great gun an 
eminent Colonial Statesman who relied for fame 
on his deeds rather than his words. With his curi- 
ously minute calculation of chances Quisante had 
discovered that there was no social occasion of great 
attraction to carry off his audience after dinner; 
they would stay and listen if he were worth listen- 
ing to ; the ladies in the gallery would stay too, if 
at the outset he could strike a note that would 
touch their hearts. This was his first really good 
chance, the first opening for such a coup as he loved. 
His eyes were bright as he opened an atlas and 
verified with precision the exact position of the 
Colonial Statesman’s Colony; he had known it be- 
fore of course — roughly. 

Lady Richard had much affection in her nature 
and with it a fine spice of malice. The two ingre- 
dients combined to bring her to the gallery ; she 
wished to please Dick, and she wished to be in a 
position to annoy him by deriding Quisante. So 
there she sat looking down on the men through a 
haze of cigar-smoke which afflicted the ladies’ noses 
and threatened seriously to affect their gowns. 

“ They might give up their tobacco for one 
night,” muttered a girl near her. 

“ They’d much rather give us up, my dear,” re- 
torted a dowager who felt that she would be con- 
sidered a small sacrifice and was not unwilling to 
make others think the same about themselves. 

By Lady Richard’s side sat May Gaston. The 
36 


SANDROS WAY 


time is happily gone by when any one is allowed 
even to assume indifference about the Empire, yet 
it may be doubted whether interest in the Empire 
had the chief share in moving her to accept Lady 
Richards invitation. Nor did she want to hear 
Dick Benyon, nor the Colonial Statesman; quite 
openly she desired and expressed her desire to see 
what Quisante would make of it. 

“ How absurd ! ” said Lady Richard crossly. 
“ Besides he’s only got a few words to say.” 

May smiled and glanced along the row of ladies. 
About ten places from her was a funny little old 
woman with an absurd false front of fair hair and a 
black silk gown cut in ancient fashion ; her features 
showed vivid disgust at the atmosphere and she 
made frequent use of a large bottle of smelling- 
salts. Next to her, on the other side, was Mrs. 
Gellatly, who nodded and smiled effusively at 
May. 

“ Who’s the funny old woman ? ” May asked. 

Lady Richard looked round and made a con- 
strained bow; the old lady smiled a little and 
sniffed the bottle again. 

“ Oh, she’s an aunt of the man’s ; come to hear 
him, I suppose. Oh, Dick’s getting up.” 

Amid polite attention and encouraging “ Hear, 
hears,” Dick made his way through a few appropri- 
ate sentences which his hearty sincerity redeemed 
from insignificance. The Colonial Statesman had 
a well-founded idea that the zeal of his audience 
outstripped its knowledge, and set himself to im- 
37 


QUISANTE 

prove the latter rather than to inflame the former. 
His reward was a somewhat frigid reception. May 
noticed that old Miss Quisante was dozing, and 
Lady Richard said that she wished she was at 
home in bed : Quisante himself had assumed a 
smile of anticipation when the Statesman rose and 
preserved it unimpaired through the long course of 
the speech. The audience as a whole grew a little 
restless ; while the next speaker addressed them, 
one or two men rose and slipped away unobtru- 
sively. A quick frown and a sudden jerk of Qui- 
sante s head betrayed his fear that more would go 
before he could lay his grip on them. 

“ Why doesn’t this man stop? ” whispered May. 

“ I suppose, my dear, he thinks he may as well 
put Mr. Quisante off as long as possible,” Lady 
Richard answered flippantly. 

Amid yawns, the laying down of burnt-out 
cigars, and glances at watches, Quisante rose to 
make his reply. Aunt Maria was wide-awake 
now, looking down at her nephew with her sour 
smile ; Lady Richard leant back resignedly. Qui- 
sante pressed back his heavy smooth black hair, 
opened his wide thin-lipped mouth, and began with 
a courteous commonplace reference to those who 
shared with himself the honour of being guests that 
night. Ordinary as the frame- work was, there was 
a touch of originality in what he said ; one or two 
men who had meant to go struck matches and lit 
fresh cigars. Dick Benyon looked up at the gal- 
lery and nodded to his wife. Then Quisante 
38 


SANDROS WAY 


seemed suddenly to increase his stature by an inch 
or two and to let loose his arms ; his voice was still 
not loud, but every syllable fell with incisive dis- 
tinctness on his listener’s ears. An old Member of 
Parliament whispered to an elderly barrister, “ He 
can speak anyhow,” and got an assenting nod for 
answer. And he was looking as he had when he 
spoke of his Empress among women, as he had 
when he declared that the Spirit of God could not 
live and move in the grave-clothes of dead prophets. 
He was far away from the guests now, and he was 
far away from himself ; it was another moment ; he 
was possessed again. Dick looked up with a radi- 
ant triumphant smile, but his wife was frowning, 
and May Gaston sat with a face like a mask. 

“ By Jove ! ” murmured the elderly barrister. 

The whole speech was short ; perhaps it had been 
meant to be longer, but suddenly Quisante’s pale 
face turned paler still, he caught his hand to his side, 
he stopped for a moment, and stumbled over his 
words ; then he recovered and, with his hand still on 
his side, raised his voice again. But the logical 
mind of the elderly barrister seemed to detect a 
lacuna in the reasoning ; the speaker had skipped 
something and flown straight to his peroration. He 
gave it now in tones firm but slower than before, 
with a pause here and there, yet in the end sum- 
moning his forces to a last flood of impassioned 
words. Then he sat down, not straight, but falling 
just a little on one side and making a clutch at his 
neighbour’s shoulder; and while they cheered he 
39 


QUISANTE 

sat quite still with closed eyes and opened lips. 
“ Has he fainted ? ” ran in a hushed whisper round 
the room; Dick Benyon sprang from his chair, a 
waiter was hurried off for brandy, and Lady Richard 
observed in her delicately scornful tones, “ How 
extremely theatrical ! ” 

“ Theatrical! ” said May in a low indignant voice. 

“ You don’t suppose he’s really fainting, my dear, 
do you ? Oh, I’ve seen him do the same sort of 
thing once before ! ” 

An impulse carried May’s eyes towards Miss 
Quisante ; the old lady was smiling composedly and 
sniffing her bottle. Her demeanour was in strong 
contrast to Mrs. Gellatly’s almost tearful excite- 
ment. 

“ He couldn’t, he couldn’t ! ” May moaned in 
horror. 

If the untrue suspicion entertained by Lady 
Richard and possibly shared by Miss Quisante (the 
old lady’s face was a riddle) spread at all to anybody 
else, the fault lay entirely at the sufferer’s own door. 
He knew too well how real the attack had been ; 
when the ladies mingled with the men to take tea 
and coffee, he was still suffering from its after- 
effects. But he treated the occurrence in so hope- 
lessly wrong a way ; he minced and smirked over 
it ; he would not own to a straightforward physical 
illness, but preferred to hint at and even take credit 
for an exaggerated sensibility, as though he en- 
hanced his own eloquence by pointing to the extra- 
ordinary exhaustion it produced. He must needs 
40 


SANDROS WAY 


bring the frailty of his body to the front, not as an 
apology, but as an added claim to interest and a 
new title by which to win soft words, admiring 
looks, and sympathetic pressings from pretty hands. 
Who could blame Lady Richard for murmuring, 
44 There, my dear, now you see ! ” ? Who could 
wonder that Aunt Maria looked cynically indiffer- 
ent ? Was it strange that a good many people, 
without going to the length of declaring that the 
orator had suffered nothing at all, yet were inclined 
to think that he knew better than to waste, and 
quite well how to improve, the opportunity that a 
trifling fatigue or a passing touch of faintness gave 
him ? “ Knows how to fetch the women, doesn’t 

he ? ” said somebody with a laugh. To be accused 
of that knowledge is not a passport to the admira- 
tion of men. 

Before May Gaston came near Quisante himself, 
Jimmy Benyon seized on her and introduced her to 
Aunt Maria. In reply to politely expressed phrases 
of concern the old lady’s shrewd eyes twinkled. 

44 Sandro ’ll soon come round, if they let him 
alone,” she said. 

The words were consistent with either view of 
the occurrence, but the tone inclined them to the 
side of uncharitableness. 

44 Is he liable to such attacks ? ” May asked. 

44 He’s always been rather sickly,” Miss Quisante 
admitted grudgingly. 

44 He’s had a splendid triumph to-night. He was 
magnificent,” 


41 


QUISANTE 

“ Sandro makes the most of a chance.” 

May was surprised to find herself attracted to the 
dry old woman. Such an absence of feeling in re- 
gard to one who was her only relative and the hero 
of the evening might more naturally have aroused 
dislike; but Aunt Maria’s coolness was funnily 
touched both by resignation and by humour ; she 
mourned that things were as they were, but did not 
object to laughing at them. When immaculate 
Jimmy, a splendid type of the handsome dandified 
man about town, began to be enthusiastic over 
Quisante, she looked up at him with a sneering 
kindly smile, seeming to ask, “ How in the world do 
you come to be mixed up with Sandro ? ” When 
May expressed the hope that he would be more 
careful of himself Aunt Maria’s smile said, “ If you 
knew as much about him as I do, you’d take it 
quietly. It’s Sandro’s way.” Yet side by side with 
all this was the utter absence of any surprise at his 
exhibition of power or at the triumph he had won ; 
these she seemed to take as the merest matter of 
course. She knew Quisante better than any living 
being knew him, and this was her attitude towards 
him. When they bade one another good-bye, May 
said that she was sure her mother would like to call 
on Miss Quisante. “ Come yourself,” said the old 
lady abruptly ; she at least showed no oiliness, no 
violence of varnish ; they were not in the family, it 
seemed. 

The crowd grew thinner, but the diminished 
publicity brought no improvement to Quisante’s 
42 


SANDROS WAY 


manner. He was with Lady Richard and the 
brothers now — May noticed that nephew and aunt 
had been content to exchange careless nods — and 
Lady Richard made him nearly his worst. He 
knew that she did not like him, but refused to ac- 
cept the defeat ; he plied her more and more freely 
with the airs and affections that rendered him 
odious to her ; he could not help thinking that by 
enough attention, enough deference, and enough of 
being interesting he must in the end conciliate her 
favour. When May joined the group, his manner 
appealed from her friend to her, bidding Lady 
Richard notice how much more responsive May 
was and how pleasant he was to those who were 
pleasant to him. May would have despised him 
utterly at that instant but for two things : she re- 
membered his moments, and she perceived that all 
the time he was suffering and mastering severe, 
perhaps poignant, pain. But again, when she asked 
him how he was, he smirked and flourished, till 
Lady Richard turned away in disgust and even the 
brothers looked a little puzzled and distressed as 
they followed her to the buffet and ministered to 
her wants. 

“ Sit down,” said May, in a tone almost sharp. * 
“No, sit at once, never mind whether I’m sitting 
or not.” 

He obeyed her with an overdone gesture of pro- 
test, but his face showed relief. She got a chair 
for herself and sat down by him. 

“You spoke splendidly,” she said, and hurried 
43 


QUISANTE 

on. “ No, no, don’t thank me, don’t tell me that 
you especially wished to please me, or that my ap- 
probation is your reward, or anything about beauty 
or bright eyes, or anything in the very least like 
that. It’s all odious and I wonder why you — a 
man like you — should think it necessary to do it.” 

Quisante looked startled ; he had been leaning 
back in apparent exhaustion, but now he sat up 
straight and prepared to speak, a conciliatory smile 
on his lips. 

“No, don’t sit up, lean back. Don’t talk, don’t 
smile, don’t be agreeable.” She had begun to 
laugh at herself by now, but the laughter did not 
stop her. “ You were ill, you were very ill, you 
looked almost dead, and you battled with it splen- 
didly, and beat it splendidly, and went on and won. 
And then you must — Oh, why do you ? ” 

“ Why do I do what ? ” he asked, quietly enough 
now, with a new look of puzzle and bewilderment 
in his eyes, although his set smile had not disap- 
peared. 

“ Why, go on as if there’d been nothing much 
really the matter, as if you’d had the vapours or 
the flutters, or something women have, or used to 
have when they were even sillier than they are.” 
She laughed again, adding, “ Really I was expect- 
ing Dick Benyon to propose to cut your stay- 
laces.” 

The Benyons were coming back ; if she had more 
to say, there was no time for it ; yet she managed 
a whisper as she shook hands with him, her gesture 
44 


SANDROS WAY 


still forbidding him to rise. Her face, a little 
flushed with colour, bent down towards his and her 
voice was eager as she whispered, 

44 Good-night. Be simple, be yourself ; it’s worth 
while.” 

Then courage failed and she hurried off with a 
confused nervous farewell to her friends. Her 
breath came quick as she lay back in the brougham 
and closed her eyes. 

Quisante was tired and ill; he was unusually 
quiet in his parting talk with Lady Richard. Even 
she was sorry for him ; and when pity entered little 
Lady Richard’s heart it drove out all other emo- 
tions however strong, and routed all resolutions 
however well-founded. 

44 You look dead-beat, you do indeed,” she said. 
She turned to her husband. 44 Dick, Mr. Quisante 
must come and spend a few quiet days with us in 
the country. Something’ll happen to him, if he 
doesn’t.” 

Dick could hardly believe his ears, and was full 
of delighted gratitude ; hitherto Lady Richard had 
been resolute that their country house at least 
should be sacred from Quisante’s feet. He took 
his wife’s hand and pressed it as he joyfully seconded 
her invitation. Some of Quisante’s effusive polite- 
ness displayed itself again, but still he was subdued, 
and Lady Richard, full of her impulse of compas- 
sion, escaped without realising fully the enormity 
of the step into which it had tempted her. 


4 


45 


CHAPTER IV 


HE’S COMING! 

Dick Benyon was a man of plentiful ideas, but he 
found great difficulty in conveying them to others 
and even in expressing them to himself. Jimmy, 
his faithful disciple, could not help him here, and 
indeed was too much ashamed of harbouring such 
things as ideas to be of any service as an apostle. 
All the ideas were not Dick’s own ; in the case 
of the Imperial League, for example, he merely 
floated on the top of the flood-tide of opinion, and 
even the Crusade, his other and dearer pre-occupa- 
tion, was the fruit of the Dean of St. Neot’s brain 
as much as or even more than of his own. The 
Dean never got the credit of having ideas at all, 
first because he did not look like it, being short, 
stout, ruddy, and apparently very fond of his din- 
ner, secondly because he never talked of his ideas 
to women. Mrs. Baxter did not care about ideas 
and possibly the Dean generalised rashly. More 
probably, perhaps, he had contracted a prejudice 
against talking confidentially to women from ob- 
serving the ways of some of his brethren ; he had 
dropped remarks which favoured this explanation. 
Anyhow he lost not only the soil most fruitful for 
propagation, but also the surest road to a reputa- 
tion. Of the idea of the Crusade he was particu- 


HE’S COMING! 


larly careful to talk to men only ; women, he felt 
sure, would tell him it was superb, and his wish 
was to be confronted with its difficulties and its ab- 
surdities, to overcome this initial opposition only 
with a struggle, and to enlist his antagonist as a fel- 
low-warrior ; he had especial belief in the persua- 
siveness of converts. Unluckily, however, as a rule 
only the first part of the programme passed into 
fact ; he got the absurdities and difficulties pointed 
out freely enough, the conversions hung fire. Dick 
Benyon was almost the sole instance of the tri- 
umphant carrying-out of the whole scheme; but 
though Dick could believe and work, and could 
make Jimmy believe and nearly make Jimmy 
work, he could not preach himself nor make Jimmy 
preach in tones commanding enough to engage the 
respect and attention of the world. Who could 
then? Dick had answered ‘‘Weston March- 
mont ; ” the Dean shook his head confidently but 
wistfully ; he would have liked but did not expect 
to find a convert there. 

Weston Marchmont made, as might be expected, 
the Great Refusal, although not in the impressive 
or striking manner which such a phrase may seem 
to imply. Twisting his claret glass in his long thin 
fingers, he observed with low- voiced suavity that in 
ecclesiastical matters, as doubtless in most others, 
he was behind the times ; he was a loyal Establish- 
ment man and had every intention of remaining 
such, and for his own part he found it possible 
to reconcile the ultimate postulates of faith with 
47 


QUISANTE 


the ultimate truths of science. As soon as ulti- 
mates came on the scene, the Dean felt that the 
game was up ; the Crusade depended on an appeal 
to classes which must be reached, if they could be 
reached at all, by something far short of ultimates. 
Ultimates were for the few ; one reason, among 
others, why Marchmont fondly affected them. 
Marchmont proceeded to remark that in his doubt- 
less out-of-date view the best thing was to preserve 
the traditions and the traditional limits of Church 
work and Church influence. He did not say in so 
many words that the Church was a good servant 
but a bad master, yet Dick and the Dean gathered 
that this was his opinion, and that he would look 
with apprehension on any movement directed to 
bringing ecclesiastical pressure to bear on secular 
affairs. In all this he assumed politely that the Cru- 
sade could succeed, but the lift of his brows which 
accompanied the concession was very eloquent. 

“ Then,” he ended apologetically, “ there’s the 
danger of vulgarity. One puts up with that in 
politics, but I confess I shrink from it in religion.” 

“ What appeals to everybody is not necessarily 
vulgar,” said the Dean. 

“Not necessarily,” Marchmont agreed, with the 
emphasis on the second word. “ But,” he added, 
“ it’s almost of necessity untrue, and after all re- 
ligion has to do with truth.” He was getting 
near his ultimates again. 

There was a pause; then Marchmont laughed 
and said, jokingly, 


48 


HE’S COMING! 


“You’ll have to go to the Radicals, Dick. 
They’re the dogmatic party nowadays, and they’ll 
be just as ready to manage your soul for you as 
they are your property.” 

44 That’s just what I don’t mean to do,” said 
Dick obstinately. But he looked a little uncom- 
fortable. It was important to preserve the attitude 
that fighting the Radicals was no part of the 
scheme of the Crusade. Marchmont smiled at the 
Dean across the table. 

“ I love the Church, Mr. Dean,” he said, 44 but 
I’m afraid of the churchmen.” 

64 Much what I feel about politics and politicians.” 

44 Then if churchmen are politicians too — ?” 
Marchmont suggested ; the Dean’s laughter ad- 
mitted a verbal defeat. But when Marchmont 
had gone he shook his head over him again, say- 
ing, 44 He’ll not be great ; he’s much too sane.” 

44 He’s too scrupulous,” said Dick. The Dean 
protested with a smile. 44 1 mean too fastidious,” 
Dick added, correcting himself. 

44 Yes, yes, too fastidious,” agreed the Dean con- 
tentedly. 44 And when I said sane perhaps I rather 
meant cautious, unimaginative, and cold.” Both 
felt the happier for the withdrawal of their hastily 
chosen epithets. 

This conversation had occurred in the early days 
of Dick’s acquaintance with Alexander Quisante, 
when, although already much taken with the man, 
he had a clearer view of what he was than enthusi- 
asm allowed later on. Rejecting Marchmont, or 
49 


QUISANTE 

rather acquiescing in Marchmont’s refusal, on the 
ground of his excessive caution, his want of im- 
agination, and his fastidiousness, he had hesitated 
to sound Quisante in regard to the great project. 
It seemed to him impossible to regard his new 
friend as an ideal leader for this purpose ; one rea- 
son is enough to indicate — the ideal leader should 
be absolutely unselfish by nature. By nature Qui- 
sante was very far from that, and his circumstances 
were not such as to enable him to overcome the 
bent of his disposition ; whatever else he was or 
might become, he would be self-seeking too, and it 
would be impossible ever to make him steadily and 
deliberately forgetful of himself. 

But as time went on, another way opened before 
Dick’s eyes and was cautiously and tentatively 
hinted at to his confidant, the Dean. The Dean, 
having seen a little and heard much of Quisante, 
was inclined to be encouraging. There were in him 
possibilities not to be found in Marchmont. He 
was not fastidious, he would not trouble himself or 
other people about ultimates, above all he could be 
fired with imagination. Once that was achieved, 
he would speak and seem as though he were all 
that the ideal leader ought to be, as though inspi- 
ration filled him; he would express what Dick 
could only feel and the Dean do no more than 
adumbrate ; nay, in time, as he grew zealous in 
the cause, his self-interest and personal ambition 
would be conquered, or at least would be so 
blended and fused with the nobility of the cause 
50 


HE’S COMING! 


as to lose any grossness or meanness which might 
be thought to characterise them in an uncom- 
pounded condition. All this might be achieved if 
only the great idea could be made to seem great 
enough and the potentialities which lay in its real- 
isation invested with enough pomp and dignity. 
After all was not such a blend of things personal 
and things beyond and higher than the personal as 
much as could reasonably be expected from human 
beings, and adequate to the needs of a work-a-day 
world? 

“ I don’t want to be a bishop, but I do mean to 
stick to my deanery through thick and thin,” said 
the Dean, smiling. Dick understood him to mean 
that allowance must be made for the personal ele- 
ment, and that a man might serve a cause very 
usefully without being prepared to go quite as far 
as the stake, or even the workhouse, for it; if this 
were not so, there would be less competition for 
places in State and Church. 

Such great schemes for causing right ideas to 
prevail in things spiritual and temporal and for plac- 
ing the right men in the right positions to ensure 
this important result are material here only so far 
as they influence the career or illustrate the char- 
acter of individuals. The Crusade did not perhaps 
do as much towards altering the face of the world, 
or even of this island, as it was intended to, but it 
had a considerable, if temporary, effect on current 
politics, and it appeared to Quisante to be at once a 
fine conception and a notable opportunity ; between 
51 


QUISANTE 

these two aspects he did not, as Dick Benyon had 
foreseen, draw any very rigid line. To make the 
Church again a power with the masses ; this done, 
to persuade the masses to use their power under 
the leadership of the Church ; this done, to har- 
monise unimpaired liberty of conscience with a 
whole-hearted devotion to truth, and to devote 
both to ends which should unite the maximum of 
zeal for the Community with the minimum of po- 
litical innovation, were aims which, if they were 
nothing else, might at least claim to be worthy to 
exercise the intellect of superior men and to inspire 
the eloquence of orators. That a set of people on 
the other side was professing to do the same things, 
with totally different and utterly wrong notions of 
the results to be obtained, afforded the whet of an- 
tagonism, and let in dialectic and partisanship as a 
seasoning to relieve the high severity of the main 
topic. Quisante’s personal relations with the Church 
had never been intimate ; he was perhaps the better 
able to lay hold of its romantic and picturesque as- 
pect. The Dean, for instance, was hampered and 
at times discouraged by a knowledge of details. 
Dick Benyon had to struggle against the family 
point of view as regarded the family livings. 
Quisante came almost as a stranger, ready to be 
impressed, to take what suited him, to form the 
desired opinion and no other ; if a legal metaphor 
may be allowed, to master what was in his brief, 
to use that to the full, and to know nothing to the 
contrary. The Empire was very well, but it was 
52 


HE’S COMING! 


a crowded field; the new subject had advantages all 
its own and especial allurements. 

Yet Miss Quisante laughed, as a man’s relatives 
often will although the rest of the world is unim- 
peachably grave. For any person engaged in get- 
ting a complete view of Alexander Quisante it was 
well to turn from Dick Benyon to Aunt Maria. So 
May Gaston found when she took the old woman 
at her word and went to see her, unaccompanied 
by Lady Attlebridge. She listened awhile to her 
caustic talk and then charged her roundly with not 
doing justice to her nephew. 

“ Sandro’s caught you too, has he ? ” was her 
hostess’s immediate retort. 

“No, he hasn’t caught me, as you call it, Miss 
Quisante,” said May, smiling. “ I dislike a great 
deal in him.” She paused before adding, “ What’s 
more, I’ve told him so.” 

“ He’ll be very pleased at that.” 

“ He didn’t seem to be.” 

“ I didn’t say he was pleased, I said he would 
be,” remarked Aunt Maria placidly. “No doubt 
you vexed him at the time, but when he’s thought 
it over, he’ll be flattered at your showing so much 
interest in him.” 

“ I shouldn’t like him to take it like that,” said 
May thoughtfully. 

“ It’s the true way to take it, though.” 

“ Well then, I suppose it is. Except that there’s 
no reason why my interest should flatter anybody.” 
She determined on an offensive movement against 
53 


QUISANTE 

the sharp confident old lady. 44 All his faults are 
merely faults of bringing up. You brought him 
up ; why didn’t you bring him up better ? ” 

Miss Quisante looked at her for several mo- 
ments. 

44 I didn’t bring him up well, that’s true enough,” 
she said. “ But, my dear, don’t you run off with 
the idea that there’s nothing wrong with Sandro 
except his manners.” 

44 That’s exactly the idea I have about him,” May 
persisted defiantly. 

44 Ah ! ” sighed Aunt Maria resignedly. 44 Prob- 
ably you’ll never know him well enough to find out 
your mistake.” 

Warnings pique curiosity as often as they arouse 
prudence. 

44 1 intend to know him much better if he’ll let 
me,” said May. 

44 Oh, he’ll let you.” The old lady’s gaze was 
very intent ; she had by now made up her mind that 
this must be Sandro’s Empress. Had she been om- 
nipotent, she would at that moment have decreed 
that Sandro should never see his Empress again ; 
she was quite clear that he and his Empress would 
not be good for one another. 44 1 begin to hear 
them talking about him,” she went on with a 
chuckle. 44 He’s coming into fashion, he’s to be 
the new man for a while. You London people 
love a new man just as you do a new craze. You’re 
fine talkers too. I like your buzz. It’s a great 
hum, hum, buzz, buzz. It turns some men’s heads, 
54 


HE’S COMING! 

but it only sharpens others’ wits ; it won’t turn 
Sandro’s head.” 

“I’m glad you allow him some virtues.” 

“ Oh, if it’s a virtue to look so straight forward 
to where you mean to get that nothing will turn 
your head away from it.” 

“ That’s twisting your own words, Miss Quisante. 
I don’t think he’s that sort of man at all; he isn’t 
the least your — your iron adventurer. He’s full 
of emotion, of feeling, of — well, almost of poetry. 
Oh, not always good poetry, I know. But how 
funny that I should be defending him and you at- 
tacking him ; it would be much more natural the 
other way round.” 

“ I don’t see that. I know him better than you 
do. Now he’s to champion the Church — or some 
such nonsense! What’s Sandro got to do with 
your Church ? What does he care about it ? ” 

“ He cared about his subject the other evening ; 
you must admit that.” 

“ Oh, his subject ! Yes, he cares about it while 
it’s his subject.” 

May laughed. “ I want to take just one liberty, 
Miss Quisante,” she said. “ May I ? I want to 
tell you that I think you’re a great deal more than 
half wrong about your nephew.” 

“Even if I am, I’m right enough for practical 
purposes with the other part,” said the obstinate 
old woman. She leant forward and spoke with a 
sudden bitter emphasis. “ It’s not all outside, he’s 
wrong inside too.” 


QUISANTE 

“ It’s too bad of you, oh, it really is,” cried May 
indignantly. “You who ought to stand up for 
him and be his greatest friend ! ” 

“ Oh, yes, I see ! I’ve overshot my mark. I’m 
a blunderer.” 

“ Your mark ? What mark ? Why do you 
want to tell me about him at all ? ” 

“ I don’t,” said Miss Quisante, folding her hands 
in her lap and assuming an air of resolute reticence. 
But her eyes dwelt now with an imperfectly dis- 
guised kindness on the tall fair girl who pleaded 
for justice and saw no justice in the answers that 
she got. But the more Aunt Maria inclined to 
like May Gaston, the more determined was she 
not to palter with truth, the more determined to 
have no hand in giving the girl a false idea of San- 
dro. So far as lay in her power, Sandro’s Empress 
should know the whole truth about Sandro. 

The buzz of London, to which Miss Quisante re- 
ferred as beginning to sound her nephew’s name, 
revealed to the ear three tolerably distinct notes. 
There were the people who laughed and said the 
thing was no affair of theirs ; this section was of 
course the largest, embracing all the naturally in- 
different as well as the solid mass of the opposite 
political party. There were the people who were 
angry at Dick Benyon’s interference and at his 
proteges impudence; in the ranks of these were 
most of Dick’s political comrades, together with 
their wives and daughters. Here the resentment 
was at the idea that there was any vacancy, actual 
56 


HE’S COMING! 


or prospective, which could not be filled perfectly 
well without the intrusion of such a person as Qui- 
sante. Thirdly there was the small but gradually 
growing group which inclined to think that there 
was something in Dick’s notions and a good deal 
in his friend’s head. A reinforcement came no 
doubt from the persons who were naturally prone 
to love the new and took up Quisante as a wel- 
come change, as something odd, with a flavour of 
the unknown and just a dash of the mystery-man 
about him. 

The Quisante-ites had undoubtedly something 
to say for themselves and something to show for 
their faith. Handicapped as he was by his sen- 
sational success at the Imperial League dinner, 
with its theatrical and faintly suspicious climax, 
Quisante had begun well in the House. He broke 
away from his mentor’s advice ; Dick had been for 
more sensation, for storming the House ; Quisante 
rejected the idea and made a quiet, almost hesitat- 
ing, entry on the scene. He displayed here a pe- 
culiarity which soon came to be remarked in him ; 
on public occasions and in regard to public audi- 
ences he possessed a tact and a power of under- 
standing the feelings of his company which entirely 
and even conspicuously failed him in private life. 
The House did not like being stormed, especially 
on the strength of an outside reputation ; he ad- 
dressed it modestly, bringing into play, however, 
resources with which he had not been credited — a 
touch of humour and a pretty turn of sarcasm. 

57 


QUISANTE 

He knew his facts too, and disposed of contradic- 
tions with a Blue-book and a smile. The hyper- 
critical were not silenced ; Marchmont still found 
the smile oily, and his friends traced the humour 
to districts which they supposed to lie somewhere 
east of the London Hospital; but they were 
bound to admit sorrowfully that, although all this 
was true, it might not, under democratic institu- 
tions, prove fatal to a career. 

Dick Benyon was enthusiastic ; he told his friend 
that he had scored absolutely off his own bat and 
that there was and could be no more question of 
help or obligation. He was rather surprised by a 
display of feeling on Quisante’s part which seemed 
to indicate almost an excess of gratitude ; but 
Quisante felt his foot on the ladder, and the wells 
of emotion were full to overflowing. Dick es- 
caped in considerable embarrassment, telling him- 
self that remarkable men could not be expected 
to behave just like other men, like his sort of man, 
but wishing they would. None the less he praised 
what he hardly liked, and the reputation of being 
a good friend was added to Quisante’s credentials. 
Lastly, but far from least in importance, a story 
went the rounds that a very great veteran, who 
had taken a keen interest in Weston Marchmont, 
and designated him for high place in a future not 
remote, had recently warned him, in apparent jest 
indeed but with unmistakable significance, that it 
would not do to take things too easily, or let a 
rival obtain too long a start. There was nobody 
58 


HE’S COMING! 


of whom the Statesman could be supposed to be 
thinking, except the dark horse that Dick Benyon 
had brought into the betting — Alexander Quisante ! 
Such predictions from such quarters have no small 
power of self- verification ; they predispose lesser 
men to a fatalistic acquiescence which smoothes 
the way of the prophecy. 

Marchmont, scorning the rival, was inclined to 
despise the dangers of the contest, but his supineness 
may have been in part due to the occupation of his 
mind by another interest. He had come to the 
conclusion that he wanted May Gaston for his wife 
and that she would accept his proposal. A few days 
before the Easter holidays began he betook himself 
to Lady Attlebridge’s with the intention of settling 
the matter there and then. The purpose of his 
coming seemed to be divined ; he was shown direct 
to May’s own room, and found her there alone. She 
had been reading a letter and laid it down on a table 
by her; Marchmont could not help his eye catching 
the large printed address at the head of the sheet of 
paper, “Ashwood.” Ashwood was Dick Benyon’s 
country place. A moment later May explained the 
letter. 

“ I’ve had a wail from Amy Benyon,” she said. 
“ She wants me to go to them for Easter and com- 
fort her. Look what she writes : ‘You must come, 
dear. I must be helped through, I must have a 
refuge. How in the world I ever did such a thing 
I don’t know ! But I did and I can’t help it now. 
He’s coming ! So you must come. We ex- 
59 


QUISANTE 

pect the Baxters and Mr. Morewood. But I want 
you .’ ” 

“ What has she done ? Who’s coming ? ” asked 
Marchmont. 

“ Mr. Quisante.” 

He paused for a moment before he said, “ You 
won’t go, I suppose ? ” 

“ I must go if Amy wants me as much as that. 
Besides — well, perhaps it’ll be interesting.” 

A chill fell on Marchmont, and its influence spread 
to his companion. Here at least he had hoped to 
be rid of Quisante, to find a place where the man 
could not be met, and people to whom the man was 
as a friend impossible. May read his thoughts, but 
her purpose wavered. She liked him very much ; 
that hot rebellious fit, which made her impatient of 
his limits, was not on her now. He had found her 
in a more reasonable normal mood, when his ad- 
vantages pleaded hard for him, and the limits seemed 
figments of a disorderly transient fancy. Thus he 
had come happily, and success had been in the 
mood to kiss his standards. 

“ I wonder you can endure the man in the same 
house with you,” he said. 

She made no answer except to smile, and he spoke 
no more of Quisante. To him it seemed that his 
enemy passed then and there from thought, as his 
name disappeared from the conversation. But his 
own words had raised difficulties and turned the 
smooth path rough. They had renewed something 
of the rebellious fit and given fresh life to the dis- 
60 


HE’S COMING! 


orderly fancies. They had roused her ready appre- 
hensive pride, her swift resentment at the idea of 
having her friends or her associates chosen for her. 
She would have said most sincerely then that 
Marchmont was far more to her in her heart than 
Quisante was or could be, but neither from March- 
mont nor from any man would she take orders to 
drop Quisante. While he opened his tale of love, 
her fingers played with the invitation to Ashwood 
and her eyes rested on Lady Richard’s despairing 
declaration of the inevitable — “ He’s coming ! ” 

He almost won her ; his soft “ Can you love me ? ” 
went very near her heart. She wanted to answer 
“ Yes ” and felt sure that it would be in reality a true 
response, and that happiness would wait on and 
reward the decisive word. But she was held back 
by an unconquerable indecision, a refusal (as it 
seemed) of her whole being to be committed to the 
pledge. She had not resented the confidence of his 
wooing — she had given him some cause to be con- 
fident ; she pitied and even hated the distress into 
which her doubt threw him. Yet she could do no 
more than say “ I don’t know yet.” He moved 
away from her. 

“ You’d better go away and leave me altogether,” 
she said. 

“ I won’t do that. I can’t.” 

“ I can say nothing else — I don’t know yet. You 
must give me time. ” 

“ Ah, you mean 4 yes ’ ! ” His voice grew assured 
again and joyful. 

5 


61 


QUISANTE 

She weighed the words in which she answered 
him. 

“ No. If I meant yes, I’d say it. I wouldn’t 
shilly-shally. I simply don’t know yet.” 

He left her and paced the length of the room, 
frowning. Her hesitation puzzled him ; he failed to 
trace its origin and fretted against a barrier that he 
felt but could not see. She sat silent, looking at 
him in a distressed fashion and restlessly fingering 
Lady Richard’s invitation. She was no less troubled 
than he and almost as puzzled ; for the feeling that 
held her back even while she wanted to go forward 
was vague, formless, empty of anything definite 
enough to lay hold of and bring forward as the plea 
that justified her wavering. 

4 4 1 ought to say no, since I can’t say yes. This 
isn’t fair to you,” she murmured. 

He protested that anything was better than no, 
and his protest was manifestly eager and sincere ; 
but a touch of resentment could not be kept out of 
his voice. She should have a reason to give him, 
something he could combat, disprove, or ridicule ; 
she gave him no opening, he could not answer an 
objection that she would not formulate. He pressed 
this on her and she made no attempt to defend her- 
self, merely repeating that she could not say yes now. 

44 I’ve lost you, I suppose, and no doubt I shall 
be very sorry,” she said. 

At that he came up to her again. 

44 You haven’t lost me and you never will,” he 
said. 44 I’ll come to you again before long. I think 
62 


HE’S COMING! 


you’re strange to-day, not quite yourself, not quite 
the old May. It’s as if something had got between 
us. Well, I’ll wait till it gets out of the way again.” 

Not so much his words as his voice and his eyes 
told her of a love deeper in him and stronger than 
she had given him credit for ; he lived so much in 
repression and exercised so careful a guard over any 
display of feeling. She liked the repression no less 
than the feeling and was again drawn towards him. 

4 4 1 wish I could,” she murmured. 44 Honestly, I 
wish I could.” 

He pressed her no more ; if he had, she might 
possibly at last have given a reluctant assent. 
That he would not have, even had it been in his 
power to gain it. 

44 I’ll come back — after the holidays,” he said. 

She looked up and met his glance. 

44 Yes, after the holidays,” she repeated absently. 

44 You go to Ash wood ? ” 

There was a pause before she answered. It came 
into her mind suddenly that it would have been 
strange to go to Ashwood as W eston Marchmont’s 
promised wife. Why she could not quite tell ; 
perhaps because such a position would set her very 
much outside of all that was being thought and 
talked of there, indeed in a quasi-antagonism to it. 
Anyhow the position would make her feel quite 
differently towards it all. 

44 Yes,” she answered at last, and mustered a 
laugh as she added, 44 I’m not so particular as you, 
you know. And Amy wants me.” 

63 


QUISANTE 

“ I wish you always did what people want you 
to,” said he, smiling. 

Their parting was in this lighter vein, although 
on his side still tender and on hers penitent. In 
both was a consciousness of not understanding, of 
being somehow apart, of an inexplicable difficulty 
in taking one another’s point of view. The solution 
of sympathy, the break that May had talked of, 
made itself apparent again. In spite of self-re- 
proaches, her strongest feeling, when she was left 
alone, was of joy that her freedom still was hers. 


CHAPTER V 


WHIMSY-WHAMSIES 

At Ashwood the sun was sinking after a bright 
April afternoon. Mrs. Baxter sat in a chair on the 
lawn and discoursed wisdom to May Gaston and 
Morewood. The rest of the party had gone for a 
walk to the top of what Lady Richard called 
“ Duty Hill”; it was the excursion obligatory on 
all guests. 

“ The real reason,” remarked Mrs. Baxter, who 
was making a garment — she was under spiritual 
contract to make two a month — “ why the Dean 
hasn’t risen higher is because he always has some 
whimsy- whamsy in his head.” 

“ What are they ? I never have ’em,” said More- 
wood, relighting his pipe. 

“You never have anything else,” said Mrs. Bax- 
ter in a brief but sufficient aside. “ And, my dear,” 
she continued to May, “ what you want in a bishop 
is reliability.” 

“ The only thing I want in a bishop is absence,” 
grunted Morewood. 

“ Reliability ? ” murmured May, half assenting, 
half questioning. 

“Yes, my dear,” said Mrs. Baxter, biting her 
thread. “ Reliability. I shall finish this petticoat 
to-morrow unless I have to drive with Lady Rich- 
65 


QUISANTE 

ard. You don’t want him to be original, or to do 
much, except his confirmations and so on, of course ; 
but you do want to be sure that he won’t fly out 
at something or somebody. Dan got a reputation 
for not being quite reliable. I don’t know how, 
because I haven’t time to go into his notions. But 
there it was. Somebody told the Prime Minister 
and he crossed out Dan’s name and put in John 
Wentworth’s.” 

Morewood yawned obtrusively. “What a 
shame ! ” May murmured at random. 

“ It’s just the same with a husband,” Mrs. Baxter 
observed. 

“ Only it’s rather more difficult to scratch out his 
name and put in John Wentworth’s,” Morewood 
suggested. 

May laughed. “ But anyhow the Dean’s a good 
husband, isn’t he, Mrs. Baxter ? ” 

“ Oh, yes, my dear. The same men very seldom 
fly out over notions and over women.” 

Morewood raised himself to a sitting posture and 
observed solemnly, 

“ The whole history of science, art, and literature 
contradicts that last observation.” 

Mrs. Baxter looked at him for a brief moment 
and went on with the petticoat. May interpreted 
her look. 

“ So much the worse for the whole history ! ” 
she laughed. But a moment later she went 
on, “ I think I rather like whimsy- whamsies, 
though.” 


66 


WHIMSY-WHAMSIES 


“ I should think you did,” said Morewood. 

“ A man ought to have a few,” May suggested. 

“ A sort of trimming to the leg of mutton ? Only 
take care the mutton’s there ! ” 

“ Oh, not the mustard without the beef! ” cried 
May. 

“Now there’s Canon Grinling,” said Mrs. Baxter. 
“ That’s the man I admire.” 

“ Pray tell us about him,” urged Morewood. 

“ He’s content to preach in his turn and work his 
parish.” 

“ How much better than working his head ! ” 

“ And he’ll be a bishop — at least.” 

“ Is there anything worse ? ” growled Morewood 
disconsolately. 

Mrs. Baxter never became angry with him ; she 
turned a fresh side of the petticoat, smiled sedately, 
and went on with her work. 

“We had whimsy-whamsies last night, hadn’t 
we ? ” asked May. 

“ I went to bed,” said Morewood. 

“ But Jenkins in the next parish, who has eight 
children, must take up with the Salvation Army. 
So there’s an end of him,” continued Mrs. Baxter. 
“ Not that I pity him — only her.” 

“ They talked till two. I sat up, looking plainer 
and plainer every minute.” 

“ Who was talking ? ” 

“ Oh, the Dean and Dick.” She paused and 
added, “ And later on Mr. Quisante.” 

“Quisante grows more and more anomalous 
67 


QUISANTE 

every day. It’s monstrous of a man to defy one’s 
power of judgment as he does. ’ 

“ Does he defy yours ? ” 

“ Absolutely. And I hate it.” 

“ I rather like it. You know so well what most 
people are like in half-an-hour.” 

“ I’m splendidly forward,” remarked Mrs. Bax- 
ter. “ This isn’t an April one. I’ve done them, 
and this is my first May.” 

It was impossible not to applaud and sympathise, 
for it was no later than the 27th of April. The 
friendly task performed, Morewood went on, 

44 You’re friends again, aren’t you? ” 

44 Well, partly. He spoke to me last night for 
almost the first time.” 

44 What was the quarrel ? ” 

44 1 told him his manners were bad ; and he 
proved how right I was by getting into a temper.” 
She was silent a moment. Morewood saw her 
smile and then frown in apparent vexation. Then 
she looked down at him suddenly and said, 44 But 
then — if you’d heard him last night ! ” 

44 There it is again ! ” said Morewood. 44 That’s 
what annoys me so. In common with most of 
mankind, I like to be able to label a man and put 
him in his compartment.” 

44 That’s just what you can’t do with Mr. Qui- 
santd” 

A loud merry boyish laugh sounded from the 
shrubbery behind him. Then Lady Richard came 
out, attended by young Fred Wentworth, son of 
68 


WHIMSY-WHAMSIES 


that John whose name had been put in when the 
Dean’s was scratched out owing to a suspicion of 
whimsy- whamsies. Fred was a lively fellow, whose 
trinity of occupations consisted of shooting, polo, 
and flirting; they are set down in his own order of 
merit ; by profession he was a soldier, and just now 
he adored Lady Richard hopelessly; he was tall, 
handsome, and no more steady than the sons of 
ordinary men. 

4 4 We gave them the slip beautifully, didn’t we? ” 
he was asking in exultation. 44 Think they’re still 
on the top of the hill, jawing, Lady Richard ? ” 

44 1 don’t mind how long they stay there,” she an- 
swered, as she came across to the group on the 
lawn, a dainty youthful little figure, in her white 
frock and straw hat. 44 And how have you three 
been amusing yourselves ? ” she inquired. 44 1 de- 
clare my head aches, Fred,” she complained. 44 Now 
is the Church to swallow the State, or the other 
way round, or are they to swallow one another, or 
what ? ” 

44 Such a fine day too ! ” observed Mrs. Baxter. 
Morewood burst into a laugh. 

44 To waste it on whimsy- whamsies ! ” cried May, 
joining in his mirth. 

She looked so handsome in her merriment that 
Fred’s eyes dwelt on her for a moment, a new no- 
tion showing in their pleasant expanse of blue sim- 
plicity. But loyalty’s the thing — and a pleasant 
thing too when Lady Richard stood for it. Be- 
sides May Gaston was rather serious as a rule and 
69 


QUISANTE 

given to asking questions; she might be able to 
flirt though; she just might — if there had hap- 
pened to be anybody for her to flirt with ; he pitied 
her a little because there was not. 

“ Mrs. Baxter,” said Morewood suddenly, “ have 
you ever thought what would happen if you stopped 
making petticoats?” She did not answer. “It 
illustrates,” he went on, “the absurd importance 
we attach to ourselves. The race would get itself 
clothed somehow, even as Church and State will go 
on, although they fail to settle that question of the 
swallowing on the top of the hill. ” 

May alone was listening. “ Don’t you think it 
all makes any difference?” she asked in a low 
voice. 

“Not enough to stop enjoying one’s self about, 
or to take any risks for.” 

“ I disbelieve you with my whole heart and soul ; 
and, what s more, you don’t believe yourself,” she 
said. “ To take risks is what we were given life 
for, I believe.” 

“ Whimsy- whamsies ! ” he jeered, jerking his 
thumb warningly towards Mrs. Baxter. 

To May it seemed curious how an utter absence 
of speculation and an honest engrossment in every- 
day cares, hopes, and duties appeared to produce 
an attitude of mind similar in many ways to that 
caused by an extensive syrvey of thought and a 
careful detachment of spirit from the pursuits of 
the vulgar. The expression was different ; the man 
who was now so much in her thoughts, Weston 
70 


WHIMSY-WHAMSIES 


Marchmont, would not have denounced whimsy- 
whamsies. He would have claimed an open mind 
and protested that he was ready to entertain every 
notion on its merits. But temper and taste led to 
the same end as ignorance and simplicity; the 
philosopher and the housewife met on a common 
ground of disapproval and disdain. Mrs. Baxter 
kept her house and made petticoats. Marchmont 
read his books, mixed with his world, and did his 
share in his obvious duty of governing the country. 
Misty dreams, great cloudy visions, vague ideals, 
were forsworn of both ; they were all whimsy- 
whamsies, the hardly excusable occupation of an 
idle day in the country. Was such a coincidence 
of opinion conclusive? Perhaps. But then, as she 
had hinted to Morewood, what of life? Was it not 
conclusive as to the merits of that also? Suddenly 
Fred Wentworth’s voice broke across her medita- 
tion. 

“If you asked me what I wanted,” he said in a 
tone of great seriousness, “ upon my honour I don’t 
know what I should say, except another pony.” 
He paused and added, “ A real good ’un, you know, 
Lady Richard.” 

You might trust in God in an almost Quietist 
fashion (nothing less was at the bottom of Mrs. 
Baxter’s homely serenity), you might exhaust phi- 
losophy and the researches of the wise, or you might 
merely be in excellent health and spirits. Any of 
these three seemed enough to exclude that paintul 
reaching out to dim unlikely possibilities which 
71 


QUISANTE 

must in her mind henceforward be nicknamed 
whimsy- whamsies. But to May’s temper the ques- 
tion about life came up again. She swayed between 
the opposing sides, as she had swayed between yes 
and no when Marchmont challenged her with his 
love. 

Lady Richard’s verdict about Quisante — she gave 
it with an air of laboured reasonableness — was that 
he proved worse on the whole than even she had 
anticipated. This pessimistic view was due in part 
to the constant and wearing difficulty of getting 
Fred W entworth to be civil to him ; yet May Gas- 
ton was half-inclined to fall in with it. The atti- 
tude of offence which he had at first maintained 
towards her was marked by peevishness, not by 
dignity, and when it was relaxed his old excessive 
politeness revived in full force. He had few “ mo- 
ments ” either ; and the one reported to her with 
enthusiasm by Dick Benyon took place on Duty 
Hill while she was gossiping on the lawn. Disap- 
pointed in the half- conscious anticipation which had 
brought her to Ashwood, she began to veer towards 
the obvious, towards safety, and towards Weston 
Marchmont. He had allowed himself one letter, 
not urging her, but very gracefully and feelingly 
expressed. As she walked through the village, 
the telegraph-office tempted her ; her life could be 
settled for sixpence, and there would be no need of 
further thought or trouble. She was again held back 
by a rather impalpable influence, by a vague un- 
willingness to cut herself off (as she would by such 
72 


WHIMSY-WHAMSIES 


a step) from the mental stir which, beneath the ap- 
parent quiet of country-house life, permeated Ash- 
wood. The stir was there, though it defied defini- 
tion ; it was not due to Dick or the Dean, though 
they shared in it ; it was the mark of Quisante’s 
presence, the atmosphere he carried with him. She 
recognised this with a mixture of feelings ; she was 
ashamed to dwell on his small faults in face of such 
a thing; she was afraid to find how strong his at- 
traction grew in spite of the intolerable drawbacks. 
Wavering again, she could not decide whether his 
faults were fatal defects or trifling foibles. 

She saw that the Dean shared her doubts and her 
puzzle. He had a little trick, an involuntary and 
unconscious shake of the head which indicated, as 
her study of it told her, not a mere difference of 
opinion, but a sort of moral distaste for what was 
said ; it reminded her of a dog shaking his coat to 
get rid of a splash of dirty water. She came to 
watch for it when Alexander Quisante was talking, 
and to find that it agreed wonderfully well with the 
invisible movements of her own mind; it came 
when the man was petty, or facetious on untimely 
occasions, or when he betrayed blindness to the 
finer shades of right and wrong. But for all this 
the Dean did not give up Quisante ; for all this he 
and Dick Benyon clung to their scheme and to the 
man who was to carry it out. In her urgent desire 
for guidance she took the Dean for a walk and tried 
to draw out his innermost opinions. He showed 
some surprise at her interest. 

73 


QUISANTE 

“ He’s the last man I should have thought you’d 
care to know about, Lady May,” he said. 

“ That can be only because you think me stupid,” 
she retorted, smiling. 

44 No ! But I thought you’d be stopped in limine 
— on the threshold, you know.” 

44 I see the threshold ; and, yes, I don’t like it. 
But tell me about the house too.” 

44 I’ve not seen it all,” smiled the Dean. 44 Well, 
to drop our metaphor, I think Mr. Quisante has a 
wonderfully acute intellect.” 

44 Oh, yes, yes.” 

44 And hardly a wonderfully, but a rather notice- 
ably, blunt conscience. Many men have, you’ll 
say, I know. But most of the men we meet have 
substitutes.” 

46 Substitutes for conscience ? ” May laughed re- 
provingly at her companion. 

44 Taste, tradition, the rules of society, what young 
men call 4 good form. ’ ” 

44 Ah, yes. And he hasn’t ? ” 

44 His bringing up hasn’t given them to him. He 
might learn them.” 

44 Who from ? ” 

44 One would have hoped from our host, but I see 
no signs of it.” The Dean paused, shaking his 
head. 44 A woman might teach him.” He paused 
again before adding with emphasis, 44 But I should 
be very sorry for her.” 

44 Why ? ” The brief question was asked with 
averted eyes. 


74 


WHIMSY-WHAMSIES 


“ Because the only woman who could do it must 
be the sort of woman who — whose teeth would be 
, set on edge by him every day till the process — the 
quite uncertain process — was complete.” 

“ Yes, she’d have to be that,” murmured May 
Gaston. 

“ On the whole I think she’d have an unhappy 
life, and very likely fail. But I also think that it 
would be the only way.” His round face broke 
again into its cheerful smile. “We shall have to 
make the best of him as he is, Lady May,” he 
ended. “ Heaven forbid that I should encourage 
any woman to the task ! ” 

“ I certainly don’t think you seem likely to,” 
she said with a laugh. “ It seems to come to 
this : his manners are bad and his morals are 
worse.” 

“ Yes, I think so.” 

“ But, as Dick Benyon would say, so were Napo- 
leon’s.” 

“ Exactly, and, as we know, Napoleon’s wife was 
not to be envied.” 

May Gaston was silent for a moment; then she 
said meditatively, “ Oh, don’t you think so ? ” and 
fell again into a long silence. The Dean did not 
break it ; his thoughts had wandered from the hypo- 
thetical lady who was to redeem Quisante to the 
realities of the great Crusade. 

There seemed to May something a little inhuman 
in the Dean’s attitude, and indeed in the way in 
which everybody at Ash wood regarded Quisante. 

75 


QUISANTE 

Not even Dick Benyon was altogether free from 
this reproach, in spite of his enthusiasm and his 
resulting blindness to Quisante’s lesser, but not less 
galling, faults. Not even to Dick was he a real 
friend ; none of them took him, or offered to take 
him into their inner lives, or allowed him to share 
their deepest sympathies. Perhaps this was only 
to treat him as he deserved to be treated ; if he 
asked nothing but a mutual usefulness and accom- 
modation, that they should use him and he should 
rise by serving them, neither party was deceived 
and neither had any cause to complain. But if after 
all the man was like most men, if his chilly child- 
hood and his lonely youth had left him with any 
desire for unreserved companionship, for true friend- 
ship, or for love, then to acquiesce in his bad man- 
ners and his worse morals, to be content (as the 
Dean said) to make the best of him — out of him 
would have been a more sincere form of expres- 
sion — as he was, seemed in some sort cruelty ; it 
was like growing rich out of the skill of your crafts- 
men and yet taking no interest in their happiness or 
welfare. It was to use him only as a means, and 
to be content in turn to be to him only a means ; 
such a relative position excluded true human inter- 
course, and, it appeared to May, must intensify 
the faults from which it arose. Even here, in this 
house, Quisante was almost a stranger ; the rest were 
easy with one another, their presence was natural 
and came of itself ; he alone was there for a pur- 
pose, came from outside, and required to be ac- 
76 


WHIMSY-WHAMSIES 


counted for. If the talk with the Dean confirmed 
apprehensions already existing, on the other hand it 
raised a new force of sympathy and a fresh impulse 
to kindness. But the sympathy and the appre- 
hensions could make no treaty ; fierce war waged 
between them. 

That night the turn of events served Quisante. 
He seemed ill and tired, yet he had flashes of bril- 
liancy. Again it was made plain that, all said and 
done, his was the master mind there ; even Lady 
Richard had to listen and Fred Wentworth to won- 
der unwillingly where the fellow got his notions. 
After dinner he talked to them, and they gave him 
all their ears until he chose to cease and sank back 
wearied in his chair. But then came the contrast. 
The Dean went to the library, Lady Richard 
strolled out of doors with Fred, Mrs. Baxter with- 
drew into seclusion with a novel and a petticoat, 
Dick Benyon asked May to walk in the garden 
with him, and when she refused went off to play 
billiards with Morewood. May had pleaded letters 
to write and sat down to the task. The man who 
a little while ago had been the centre of attention 
was left alone. He wandered about idly for a few 
moments, then dropped into a chair, seeming too 
tired to read, looking fretful, listless, solitary 
and sad. She watched him furtively for some 
time from behind the tall sides of the old-fash- 
ioned escritoire; he sat very still, stretched out, 
frowning, pale. Suddenly she rose and crossed the 
room. 


77 


QUISANTE 

“ It’s too much trouble to write letters,” she 
said. “ Are you inclined for a stroll, Mr. Qui- 
sante ? ” 

He sprang up, a sudden gleam darting into his 
eyes. She was afraid he would make some ornate 
speech, but perhaps he was startled into sim- 
plicity, perhaps only at a loss ; he stammered 
out no more than “ Thanks, very much,” and fol- 
lowed her through the doorway on to the gravel- 
walk. For a little while she did not speak, then 
she said, 

“ It’s good of you to be friends with me again. 
I was very impertinent that night after your speech. 
I don’t know what made me do it.” 

He did not answer, and she turned to find his 
eyes fixed intently on her face. 

“We are friends again, aren’t we?” she asked 
rather nervously ; she knew that she risked a re- 
newal of the flirtation, and if it were again what it 
had been her friendship could scarcely survive 
the trial. “ I shouldn’t have said it,” she went 
on, “ if I hadn’t — I mean, if your speech hadn’t 
seemed so great to me. But you forgive me, don’t 
you ? ” 

“ Oh yes, Lady May. I know pretty well what 
you think of me. ’ ’ His lips shut obstinately for 
a moment. “ But I shall go my way and do my 
work all the same — good manners or bad, you 
know.” 

“Those are very bad ones,” >she said, with a 
little laugh. Then she grew grave and went on 
78 


WHIMSY WHAMSIES 


imploringly, “Don’t take it like that. You talk 
as if we — I don’t mean myself, I mean all of us — 
were enemies, people you had to fight and beat. 
Don’t think of us like that. We want to be your 
friends, indeed we do.” 

“ For whom are you speaking ? ” he asked in a 
low hard voice. 

She glanced at him. Had he divined the 
thought which the Dean’s talk had put into her 
head ? Did he feel himself a mere tool, always an 
outsider, in the end friendless? If he discerned 
this truth, no words of hers could throw his keen- 
scented mind off the track. She fell back on simple 
honesty, on the strength of a personal assurance 
and a personal appeal. 

“ At any rate I speak for myself,” she said. “ I 
can answer for myself. I want to be friends. ” 

“ In spite of my manners ? ” He was bitter and 
defiant still. 

“They grow worse every minute; and your 
morals are no better, I’m told.” 

“I daresay not,” said Quisante with a short 
laugh. 

“ Oh, say you won’t be friends, if you don’t want 
to ! Be simple. There, I say it again. Be simple.” 

Lady Richard’s merry laugh rang through the 
garden, and a brusque “ Damn it!” of Morewood’s 
floated out from the open window of the billiard- 
room. There was an odd contrast to this cheerful 
levity in the man’s pale drawn face as he looked 
into May Gaston’s eyes. 

79 


QUISANTE 

“ Do you really mean what you say? ” he asked. 
“ Or are you only trying to be kind, to put me at 
my ease ? ” 

“ It’s nobody’s fault but your own that you’re 
not always at your ease,” she replied. The rest 
she let pass ; when she asked him to walk with her 
she had only been trying to be kind, and she had 
been fearful of what her kindness might entail on 
her. But things went well ; he was not flirting 
and he was not acting; his manners, if still bad, 
were just now at least not borrowed, they were 
home-grown. 

“ I am at my ease,” he told her. “ At least, I 

was till He hesitated, and then went on 

slowly, “Don’t you suppose I’ve been thinking 
about what you said ? ” 

“ I hope not; it wasn’t worth it.” 

“ It was. But how can I change ? ” His voice 
had a touch of despair as well as of defiance. “ I 
don’t see what you mean; I don’t feel what you 
mean. Yes, and you talk of morals too. Well, 
don’t I know that every now and then I — I don’t 
see those either ? ” He paused. “ A man must 
get on as well as he can with what he’s got,” he 
resumed. “If he’s only got one eye, he must 
learn to be sharper than other men in looking 
round.” 

They walked on in silence for some way. His 
pride and his recognition of his defects, his defiance 
and his pleading for himself, combined to touch her 
heart, and she could not at the moment speak to 
80 


WHIMSY-WHAMSIES 


him more about them. And to find all that so 
near the surface, so eager for utterance, ready to 
break out at the least encouragement, at the first 
sign of sympathy! For it had not come home to 
her yet that another might have spoken to him as 
she had, but found no response and opened the 
gates to no confidence ; she had not guessed what 
Aunt Maria had about the Empress among women. 

“You’re ill too,” she said. 

“No, not for me,” he answered. “I’m pretty 
well for me.” 

“ Are you never really well ? ” 

“ My body’s not much better than the other 
things. But I must use that too, as long as it’ll 
last.” There was no appeal for pity in his voice ; 
defiance was still uppermost. May felt that she 
must not let him see that she pitied him, either 
for his bad body, or his bad manners, or his bad 
morals, or his want of friends. He thought he had 
as much to give as to receive. She smiled for a 
moment. But swift came the question — Was he 
wrong? But whether he were in fact right or 
wrong, it was harder to deal with him on the basis 
of this equality than to stoop to him in the mere 
friendliness of compassion. The compassion touched 
him only, to accept the equality was to make ad- 
missions about herself. 

He was very silent and quiet ; this might be due 
to illness or fatigue. But he was also curiously free 
from tricks, simple, not exhibiting himself. These 
were the signs of one of his moments ; but what 
81 


QUISANTE 

brought about a moment now ? A moment needed 
a great subject, a spur to his imagination, an 
appeal to his deep emotions, a theme, an ideal. 
The moments had not seemed to May things that 
would enter into or have any concern with private 
life and intimate talks ; they belonged to Dick Ben- 
yon’s dark horse, not to the mere man Alexander 
Quisante. Or had she a little misunderstood the 
mere man ? The thought crossed her mind that, 
even if she adopted this conclusion and contrived 
to come to a better understanding of him, it would 
be impossible to make the rest of the world, of the 
world in which she lived and to which she clung, 
see anything of what she saw. They would laugh 
if her new position were a passing whim; they 
would be scornful and angry if it were anything 
more. 

Suddenly Quisante spoke. What he said was 
not free from consciousness of self, from that per- 
petual presence of self to self which is common 
enough in men of great ability and ambition, and 
yet never ceases to be a flaw ; but he said it soberly 
enough ; there were no flourishes. 

“You can’t be half- friends with me,” he said. 
“I must be taken as I am, good and bad. You 
must let me alone, or take me for better for worse.” 

May smiled at the phrase he had happened on 
and its familiar associations — surely so out of place 
here. But she followed his meaning and appre- 
ciated his seriousness. She could answer him 
neither by an only half- sincere assurance that she 


WHIMS Y-WHAMSIES 


was ready to be entire friends, nor yet by a joking 
evasion of his point. 

“Yes, I see : I expect that is so,” she said in a 
troubled voice; it was so very hard to take him for 
worse, and it was rather hard to resolve to make no 
effort at taking him for better. She forced a laugh, 
as she said, “I’ll think about it, Mr. Quisante.” 

As she spoke, she raised her eyes to his ; a low, 
hardly audible exclamation escaped her lips before 
she was conscious of it. If ever a man spoke 
plainly without words what was in his soul, Qui- 
sante spoke it then. She could not miss the mean- 
ing of his eyes ; all unprepared as she was, it came 
home to her in a minute with a shock of wonder 
that forbade either pain or pleasure and seemed to 
leave her numb. Now she saw how truly she, no 
less than the others, had treated him as an outsider, 
as a tool, as something to be used, not as one of 
their own world. For she had never thought of his 
falling in love with her, and had never considered 
him in that point of view at all. Yet he had, and 
here lay the reason why he flirted no more, and 
why he would have her sympathy only on even 
terms. Here also, it seemed, was the reason why 
his tricks were forgotten, why he was simple and 
direct ; here was the incitement to imagination, the 
ideal, the passion that had power to fire and purge 
his soul. 

“We must go in,” she whispered in a shaking 
voice. 4 ‘We must go in, Mr. Quisante.” 


83 


CHAPTER VI 


ON DUTY HILL 

Another week had gone by, and, although noth- 
ing very palpable had happened, there was a sort of 
vague scare in the house-party. It touched every- 
body, affecting them in different ways according to 
their characters, but raising in all an indignant pro- 
test against a fact hardly credible and a danger 
scarcely to be named. Not even Mrs. Baxter, en- 
trenched in placidity and petticoats, quite escaped 
its influence; even Morewood’s cynical humour 
hesitated to play on a situation so unexpected, pos- 
sibly so serious. Lady Richard’s alarm was the 
most out-spoken, and her dismay the most clamor- 
ous ; yet perhaps in Dick Benyon himself was the 
strongest fear. For if that did happen which 
seemed to be happening beneath the incredulous 
gaze of their eyes, who but he was responsible, to 
whose account save his could the result be laid ? 
He had brought the man into the circle, into the 
house, into the knowledge of his friends; but for 
him Quisante might have been carving a career far 
away, or have given up any idea of one at all. 

More than this, Dick, seeking approval and sym- 
pathy, had looked round for open and intelligent 
souls who would share his interest, his hopes, and 
his enthusiasm, and on no soul had he spent more 
84 


ON DUTY HILL 


pains or built higher anticipations than May Gas- 
ton’s. She was to sympathise, to share the hopes 
and to understand the enthusiasm. Had he not 
asked her to dinner, had he not brought her to the 
Imperial League banquet, had he not incited Lady 
Richard to have her at Ashwood ? And now she 
spread this scare through the house ; she outran the 
limits — all the reasonable limits — of interest, she did 
far more than ever he had asked of her, she cast 
reflections on his judgment by pushing it to ex- 
tremes whither it had never been meant to stretch. 
She had been bidden to watch Alexander Quisante, 
to admire his great moments, to see a future for 
him, and to applaud the discerning eye which had 
seen that future first. But who had bidden her 
make a friend of the man, take him into the inner 
circle, treat him as one who belonged to the group 
of her intimates, to the company of her equals and 
of those with whom she had grown up ? Almost 
passionately Dick disclaimed the responsibility for 
this ; with no less heat his wife forced it on him ; 
relentlessly the course of events seemed to charge 
him with it. 

What would happen he did not know ; none of 
them at Ashwood professed to know ; they refused 
to forecast the worst. But what had actually hap- 
pened was that Quisante was undoubtedly in love 
with May Gaston, and that May Gaston was no 
less certainly wrapped up in Quisante. The differ- 
ence of terms was fondly clung to ; and indeed she 
showed no signs of love as love is generally under- 
85 


QUISANTfi 

stood ; she displayed only an open preference for 
his society and an engrossed interest in him. It 
was bad enough ; who could tell when it might be- 
come worse ? “I will buy with you, sell with you, 
talk with you, walk with you, and so following ; 
but I will not eat with you, drink with you, nor 
pray with you.” Allowing for difference of times 
and customs, that had been the attitude of all 
towards Quisante ; a caste-feeling, almost a race- 
feeling, dictated it and kept it alive and strong 
under all superficial alliance and outward friendli- 
ness. But May had seen the barrier only to throw 
it down in a passion of scorn for its narrowness and 
an impulse of indignation at its cruelty. If she 
had gone so far, he was bold who dared to say that 
she would not go farther, or would set a limit to 
her advance on the path that the rest of them had 
never trodden. 

“ At any rate it shan’t happen here,” said Lady 
Richard. “I should never be able to look her 
mother in the face again.” 

“It won’t happen anywhere,” Dick protested. 
“ But you can’t turn him out, you know.” 

“ I can’t unless I absolutely literally do. He 
won’t see that he isn’t wanted.” 

“No ; and he may be excused if he thinks he is 
— by May Gaston at all events.” 

The subject was one to be discussed between 
husbands and wives, Dick and Lady Richard, Mrs. 
Baxter and the Dean, rather than in any more pub- 
lic fashion, but the unexpressed thought pervaded 
86 


ON DUTY HILL 


every conversation, and was strongest when the 
presence of the persons concerned forbade even in- 
direct reference. Once or twice Morewood broke 
into open comment to Lady Richard ; he puzzled 
her rather, and did not console her at all. 

44 I know why you object and how silly your 
grounds are,” he said. 44 It’s snobbery in you, you 
know. Now in me it's good sound sense. Be- 
cause in the first place, if I were ten years young- 
er, and ten times richer, and rather more of a man, 
I should like to marry her myself ; and in the 
second place I’m not sure Quisante hasn’t forged, 
or isn’t about to forge, a cheque for a million.” 

44 Don’t talk about it,” shuddered little Lady 
Richard. “ She can’t care for him, she can’t, you 
know.” 

44 Certainly not, in the sentimental sense that 
you women attach to that very weak form of ex- 
pression.” 

44 And I’m sure there’s nothing else to tempt her.” 

44 You’ll be laying down what does and doesn’t 
tempt me next.” 

44 I’ve known her since she was a child.” 

44 There’s nothing that produces so many false 
judgments of people.” 

Lady Richard was far too prostrate to accept 
any challenge. 

44 You do hate it as much as I do, don’t you ? ” 
she implored. 

44 Quite,” said he with restrained intensity. 44 But 
if you ask me, I think she’ll do it.” 

87 


QUISANTE 

A pause followed. “Fred Wentworth must 
have been waiting ever so long for me,” Lady 
Richard murmured apologetically, though an apol- 
ogy to Morewood could not soothe Fred. Her 
thoughts were busy, and a resolve was forming in 
her mind. “ I shall ask Mrs. Baxter to speak to 
her,” she announced at last. 

“ That’ll be amusing if it’s nothing else. I should 
like to be there.” 

Mrs. Baxter was by no means unwilling to help. 
She was mother to a large family and had seen all 
her children creditably married ; such matters lay 
well within the sphere of legitimate feminine ac- 
tivity as she conceived it. Of course the Dean 
told her she had better leave the thing alone, but 
it was evident that this was no more than a dis- 
claimer of responsibility in case her efforts did 
more harm than good. 

Mrs. Baxter advanced on approved and tradi- 
tional lines. She slid into the special topic from a 
general survey of matrimonial desirability; May 
did not shy, but seemed really to listen. Mrs. 
Baxter ignored the possibility of any serious pur- 
pose on May’s side and pointed out with motherly 
gentleness that her impulsive interest in Quisante 
might possibly be misunderstood by him and give 
rise to an idea absolutely remote from any which 
it was May’s intention to arouse. Then she would 
give pain; wouldn’t it be better gradually, not 
roughly or rudely but by slow degrees, to diminish 
the time she spent with Quisante and the attention 
88 


ON DUTY HILL 


she bestowed on him? Mrs. Baxter’s remonstrance, 
if somewhat conventional, yet was artistic in its 
way. 

But May Gaston laughed ; it was all very famil- 
iar, sounded very old, and was ludicrously wide of 
the mark. She had not been careless, she had not 
suffered from the dangerous stupidity of ultra- 
maidenly blindness, she knew quite well how Qui- 
sante felt. Accordingly she would not acquiesce in 
Mrs. Baxter’s diplomatic ignoring of the only ma- 
terial point — how she felt herself. Of course if all 
Mrs. Baxter meant to convey was her own disap- 
proval of the idea, — well, she conveyed so much. 
But then nobody needed to be told of that ; it was 
quite obvious and it was not important ; it was 
an insignificant atom in the great inevitable mass 
of disapproval which any marked liking for Qui- 
sante (May shrank from even thinking of stronger 
terms) must arouse. She had far too much un- 
derstanding of the disapproval and far too much 
sympathy with it to underrate the probable extent 
and depth of it ; to a half of herself she was with 
it, heart and soul ; to a half of herself the impulse 
that drove her towards Quisante was something 
hardly rational and wholly repulsive. What pur- 
pose, then, did Mrs. Baxter’s traditional motherli- 
ness serve ? 

There was one person with whom she wished to 
talk, who might, she thought, help her to under- 
stand herself and thus to guide her steps. For 
every day it became more and more obvious that 
89 


QUISANTE 

the matter would have to be faced and ended one 
way or the other. Quisante was not patient, and 
he would not be dealt with by way of favour. 
And she herself was in a turmoil and a contradic- 
tion of feeling which she summed up antithetically 
by declaring that she disliked him more every hour 
he was there and missed him more every hour he 
was not ; or, to adopt the Dean’s metaphor, his 
presence set her teeth on edge and his absence 
made her feel as if she had nothing to eat. More- 
wood might help her ; he would at least under- 
stand something of how she felt, if she could sum- 
mon up courage to talk to him ; they were old 
friends. 

One afternoon Quisante had been sitting with 
them on the lawn and, going off to walk with 
Dick, left them alone together. Quisante had not 
been in a happy vein; he had been trying to be 
light and flippant, and gossiping about people ; 
here, where good taste makes the whole difference 
between what is acceptable and what is odious, 
was not the field for him. Morewood had growled 
and May had flinched several times. She sat look- 
ing after Quisante with troubled puzzled eyes. 

“ How funnily people are mixed ! ” she mur- 
mured, more to herself than her companion. Then 
she turned to him and said with a laugh, “ How 
you hate him, don’t you ? ” 

“ By all the nature of things you ought to hate 
him much more.” 

“Yes,” she agreed. “But do you think that’s 
90 


ON DUTY HILL 


the only way to look at people, any more than it 
is at books ? You like or dislike a novel, perhaps ; 
but you don’t like or dislike — oh, what shall I say ? 
Gibbon’s Roman Empire. There you admire or 
don’t admire ; or rather you study or neglect ; be- 
cause, if you study, you must admire. Don’t 
think me learned ; it’s only an illustration.” 

“Gibbon’s a duty,” said Morewood, “but I’m 
not clear that Alexander Quisante is.” 

“ Oh, no ; exactly the opposite; for me at least.” 

“Is he then a curriculum? ” 

4 4 He’s partly a curriculum, and partly — I don’t 
know — a taste for strong drink perhaps.” She 
laughed reluctantly, adding, 44 I’m being absurd, I 
know.” 

44 In talk or in conduct ? ” 

44 Both, Mr. Morewood. I can only see him in 
metaphors. I once thought of him as a mountain 
range; that’s fine-sounding and dignified, isn’t it? 
But now I’m humbler in my fancies; I think of 
him as a forest — as the bush, you know, full of 
wretched underwood that you keep tumbling over, 
but with splendid trees (I don’t know whether 
there are in the bush, really) and every now and 
then a beautiful open space or a stately vista.” 

44 From all this riot of your fancy,” said More- 
wood grimly, 44 one only thing emerges quite 
plainly.” 

44 Does even one thing ? ” 

44 Yes. That you think about Quisante a mighty 
lot.” 


91 


QUISANTE 

“Oh, yes. Of course I do, a mighty lot,” she 
admitted, laughing. “ But you aren’t very much 
more useful than Mrs. Baxter, who told me that 
my innocent heedlessness might give Mr. Quisante 
pain. I oughtn’t to have told you that, but it was 
rather funny. I’m sure she’s said it to all the Bax- 
ter girls in turn, and about all the girls that all the 
Baxter boys were ever in love with.” 

“ Possibly Mrs. Baxter only perceives the 
wretched underwood.” 

“ Inevitably,” said May. 

“For heaven’s sake don’t drift into thinking 
that you’re the only person who can understand 
him. Once think that about anybody and you’re 
his slave.” 

“ Perhaps I’m the only person who takes the 
trouble. I don’t claim genius, only diligence.” 

“ Well, you’re very diligent,” Morewood grunted. 

She sat looking straight in front of her for a 
few moments in silence, while Morewood admired 
the curve of her chin and the moulding of her 
throat. 

“ I feel,” she said in a low voice and slowly, 
“ as if I must see what becomes of him and as if it 
ought to be seen at close quarters.” 

Then Morewood spoke with deliberate plainness. 

“ You know better than I do that he’s not of 
your class; I mean in himself, not merely where 
he happens to come from. And for my part I’m 
not sure that he’s an honest man, and I don’t think 
he’s a high-minded one.” 


92 


ON DUTY HILL 


“ Do you believe people are bound to be always 
just what they are now ? ” she asked. 

“ Thinking you can improve them is the one 
thing more dangerous to yourself than thinking 
you’ve a special gift for understanding them. 
To be quite plain, both generally end in love-affairs 
and, what’s more, unhappy love-affairs.” 

“ Oh, I’m not in love with Mr. Quisante. 
You’re going back to your narrrow loving-hating 
theory.” 

“ Hum. I’m inclined to think that nature shares 
my narrowness.” 

If May got small comfort from this conversa- 
tion, Morewood got less, and the rest of the party, 
judging from what he let drop about his impres- 
sions of May’s state of mind, none at all. Lady 
Richard was of opinion that a crisis approached 
and re-echoed her cry, “Not here anyhow! ” But 
Quisante’s demeanour at once confirmed her fears 
and ignored her protest. He had many faults and 
weaknesses, but he was not the man to shrink 
from a big stake and a great throw. His confi- 
dence in his powers was the higher owing to his 
blindness to his defects. May Gaston had indeed 
opened his eyes to some degree, but here again, as 
she showed him continued favour, he found good 
excuse for dwelling on the interest which inspired 
rather than on the frankness which characterised 
her utterance. She had bidden him be himself; 
then to her that was a thing worth being. As he 
believed himself able to conquer all external ob- 
7 93 


QUISANTE 

stacles in his path, so he vaguely supposed that he 
could overcome and obliterate anything there 
might be wrong in himself, or at any rate that he 
could so outweigh it by a more prodigal display of 
his gifts as to reduce it to utter insignificance ; try 
as he might to see himself as she saw him, he could 
not fully understand the gravity of her objections. 
And anyhow, grave as she thought them, she was 
his friend; at the cost of defying, perhaps of losing, 
her friends, she elected to be his friend. 

To the appeal of this generosity his emotions 
responded passionately; now he worshipped his 
Empress among women for more than her grace, 
her stateliness, or her beauty ; he loved her for her 
courage and her loyalty. There seemed nothing 
that he would not do for her ; it did not, however, 
occur to him that perhaps the one thing he could 
do for her was to leave her. But short of this self- 
sacrifice — and to that even he might have risen had 
anyone pointed him the way — he was in just that 
state of exalted feeling which made him at his best, 
cured him of his tricks for the time being, and gave 
him the simplicity whose absence marred his or- 
dinary hours. He always rose to the occasion, 
Dick Benyon maintained; and to this great occa- 
sion he came marvellously near to rising. This is 
not to say that he was altogether in the temper of 
a hero of romance. He loved the lady, but he 
loved the victory too, the report of it, the eclat , 
the talk it would make. 

The tendency of events might seem to justify his 
94 


ON DUTY HILL 


growing hopes and almost to excuse confidence, 
but May’s mood, had he seen it fully, would have 
rebuked him. She hung doubtful. She had suc- 
ceeded, by the help of her far-fetched metaphors, 
in describing to Morewood the nature of the at- 
traction which Quisante exercised over her and of 
the force which drew her on; but to Morewood 
she had said nothing of the opposing influences. 
She had sent no letter to Marchmont, she had not 
yet refused to become his wife. Although she 
recognised the unfairness of this treatment of him 
she could not compel her hand to the writing of 
the letter; for Marchmont came to personify to 
her all that she lost, that at least she risked, if she 
yielded to her new impulse. Thus the hold which 
her liking for him, their old acquaintance, and all 
the obvious advantages gave him was further 
strengthened. Leaving on one side his position 
and the excellence of the match, things which now 
seemed to her less important, and coming to the 
more intimate and personal aspect of the matter, 
she realised with a pang how much Marchmont 
pleased her; he never offended her taste or jarred 
on her feelings ; she would be absolutely safe with 
him, he would gratify almost every mood and 
satisfy almost every aspiration. 

Dealing very plainly with herself, formulating the 
question that she could not put to Morewood, she 
asked whether she would not rather go as a wife to 
Marchmont than to any other man she had met, 
whether Quisante or another. She had been, per- 
95 


QUISANTE 

haps still was, more nearly in love with Weston 
Marchmont than with anybody else. But the ‘ ‘ al- 
mosts ” were obstinate ; the nearly had never be- 
come the quite ; she did not tell herself that it never 
could ; on the contrary she recognised (though here 
she was inclined to shirk the probe) that if she mar- 
ried another, she might well awake to find herself 
loving Marchmont ; she knew that she would not 
like Marchmont to love another woman. So far 
she carried her inquiry ; then she grew in a way sick 
and disgusted with this exposure of her inmost 
feelings. She would not proceed to ask why pre- 
cisely she could not say yes to Marchmont without 
being sensible of a loss greater than the gain. All 
she knew was that she would not think of becoming 
Quisantd’s wife if that were not the only way of get- 
ting all she wanted from Quisante. The wifehood 
she looked on as a means to something else, to what 
she could hardly say ; in itself she did not desire it. 

Lady Richard’s prayer was answered — no thanks 
to herself or her hints, no thanks either to Mrs. 
Baxter’s motherly remonstrance or to Morewood’s 
blunt speech. It was May herself who sent Qui- 
sante away. A thrill of relief ran round the table 
when he announced at dinner that if Lady Richard 
would excuse him he would leave by the early train. 
Excuse him ! She would have hired a balloon to 
take him if he had declared a preference for that 
form of locomotion. But she expressed the proper 
regret and the proper interest in the reason (the 
pretext she called it in her own mind) for his de- 
96 


ON DUTY HILL 

parture. It appeared that a very large and impor- 
tant meeting was to be held at Manchester ; two 
Cabinet Ministers were to be there ; Quisante was 
invited to be the third speaker. He explained that 
he felt it would be a mistake to refuse the invita- 
tion, and the acceptance of it entailed a quiet day 
or two in London with his Blue-books and his pa- 
pers. As he put it, the whole thing sounded like 
an excuse ; Lady Richard hoped that it covered a 
retreat and that the retreat was after a decisive re- 
pulse from May Gaston. Even Dick was half in- 
clined to share this opinion ; for although he knew 
how a chance of shining with, and perhaps of out- 
shining, such luminaries as were to adorn the 
Manchester platform would appeal to his friend, he 
did not think that for its sake Quisante would 
abandon any prospect of success in his suit. In fact 
the impression was general, and the relief propor- 
tionate. The Dean beamed and Mrs. Baxter 
purred ; Morewood was good-natured, and Fred 
W entworth was lightened of a burden of bewilder- 
ment which had pressed heavily on his youthful 
mind. Quisante was treated with a marked access 
of cordiality, and May was petted like a child who 
has displayed a strong inclination to be naughty, but 
has at last made up its mind to be good, and 
thereby saved those responsible for its moral wel- 
fare from the disagreeable necessity of showing dis- 
pleasure and exercising discipline. She smiled to 
herself at the effusive affection with which Lady 
Richard bade her good-night. 

97 


QUISANTE 

For these people did not know the history, and 
had not been present at the interview between May 
and Quisante on Duty Hill when the sun was sink- 
ing and the air was still. They did not know that 
it was by her command that he went and that his 
going rather strengthened than relaxed the bond 
there was between them. Always there stood out 
in her memory the scene on the hill, how he faced 
her there and told her that, great as the chance was 
and imperative as the call, yet he would not go ; he 
could not leave her, he said, and then and there 
poured out his love for her. When he made love, 
he was not as when he flirted. Passion purged 
him ; he was strong, direct, and simple ; he was 
consumed then by what he felt and had no time to 
spoil the effect by asking what impression he made 
on others. Here was the thing that Marchmont 
could not give her, the great moment, the thrill, 
the sense of a power in the man which she had not 
measured, might spend her life in seeking to 
measure, and yet never to the end know in its ful- 
ness. But she answered not a word to his love- 
making, she neither accepted nor refused it; as 
often as he paused an instant and again when he 
came to the end, she had nothing to say or would 
say nothing except, “ You must go.” 

“You’re the only person in the world for whose 
sake I would hesitate about going.” 

She smiled. “ That’s not at all to your credit,” 
she said ; but she was not ill pleased. 

He came a step nearer to her and said, still so- 


ON DUTY HILL 

berly, still quietly, “I’ll go away from here to- 
morrow.” 

“ Yes, to the meeting,” she said, looking up at 
him brightly from her seat on the wooden bench on 
the hill-top. 

“ Away from here,” he repeated. “ But not to 
the meeting unless you send me.” Then he stood 
quite still opposite to her for a minute. “ Because 
unless you care for me to do it, I don’t care to do 
it,” he went on. 

A long silen ce followed as she sat there, looking 
past him down into the rich valley that spread from 
the foot of the hill. The fascination was strong on 
her, the fear was strong on her too; but for the 
moment the repulsion was forgotten. For he had 
risen to the occasion, as Dick Benyon maintained 
that he always did ; not a word too much, not an 
entreaty too extravagant, not an epithet too florid 
had found passage from his lips. His instinct of the 
way to treat a great and important situation had 
saved him and brought him triumphantly through 
all the perils. He did not ignore what he was, he 
did not disguise his knowledge of his powers; 
knowing what they were and the value of his offer- 
ing, he laid them all at her feet and asked in return 
no more than her leave and her command to use 
them. 

She raised her eyes to his pale eager face. 

“ I send you then,” she said. “ And now walk 
with me down the hill and tell me what you’ll say 
at Manchester.” 


99 


QUISANTE 

That night, before she went to bed, she wrote to 
Weston Marchmont: 

“Dear Friend, — I will not wait to see you 
again. I can’t do what you wish. Everything else 
I could do for you, and everything else that you 
wish I wish for you. But I can’t do that.” 

Alas for the renewed peace of Lady Richard’s 
mind, alas for the returning quiet of Dick Benyon’s 
conscience! Quisante made his preparations for 
going with his eyes all agleam, murmuring again 
and again, “ She sends me ; she shall see what I’m 
worth.” For one of his great moments had come 
in the nick of time and done a work that he him- 
self, low as he might now and again fall, could 
hardly quite undo. 


100 


CHAPTER VII 


ADVICE FROM AUNT MARIA 

The two Cabinet Ministers brought back from 
Manchester different accounts of Quisante’s speech 
and its effects. One said it was frothy rhetoric 
heard in puzzled lethargy, the other that it was 
genuine eloquence received with the hush of pro- 
found attention, but hailed at the end with raptu- 
rous enthusiasm. This was a typical case of the 
division of opinion which began to prevail about 
Quisante, and was not disposed of by observing that 
the unfavourable Minister belonged to that 44 old 
gang ” which it was Quisante’s mission to shake up 
or shake out. Rich in merits, his speeches were 
nevertheless faulty to a critical ear ; the ornate was 
apt to turn to the gaudy, the dignified to the pom- 
pous. To the critical, defects outweigh merits; 
but the mass of people, not being critical, fix on the 
fine things, contentedly and perhaps not unwisely 
ignoring the blemishes. So the speech was a great 
popular success, and Alexander Quisante conceived 
that he had more than justified his reputation and 
had ornamented his Lady’s colours with the laurel 
of victory. He wrote to her to say that he was 
staying a few days in Lancashire and had arranged 
to speak at one or two other places. “ If I do at all 
well,” he wrote, “it is because I forget my audi- 
101 


QUISANTE 

ence and think that I speak only to you and to 
earn the praise of your eyes.” 

“ Oh, dear, why does he talk like that ? ” said 
May Gaston with a sigh and a smile. “ Forget his 
audience ! The praise of my eyes ! ” She read the 
compliment over again almost despairingly. “Yet 
he doesn’t really think me an idiot,” she ended. 
She had made up her mind to forgive him his habit 
of playing to the gallery, but he need not treat her 
as though she sat there. She felt able to under- 
stand the dumb and bewildered reproach which 
fronted her in her sister Fanny’s face, but found 
spoken expression only in the news that Fanny 
had had a letter from Lady Richard. 

The next day she went to see Miss Quisante ; the 
paying of this visit had been in her mind from the 
first moment she left Ashwood. In the little flat’s 
narrow passage she had to squeeze by a short, 
stout, dark man, dressed with much elaboration ; 
Miss Quisante explained afterward that he was a 
sort of cousin of her own and Sandro’s. 

“ His name is Mandeville,” she said. “ His 
father’s was Isaacs. You knew we had Jewish re- 
lations ? ” 

“ I thought it not improbable.” 

“ I suppose we’ve got some of the blood, and 
some of it’s a very good thing,” pursued Aunt 
Maria. “This man’s a stock-jobber ; he came to 
talk to me about my money, but he let out a thing 
or two about Sandro.” 

“ About Mr. Quisante? ” 

102 


ADVICE FROM AUNT MARIA 


“ Yes. Well, I’m not surprised ; I never am 
surprised at Sandro. Only if he speculates with 
my money I shan’t give it him.” 

May listened and heard how Quisante had em- 
barked the five hundred pounds given him to sup- 
port his new position in a hazardous, although not 
unpromising, speculation. Whether he would win 
or lose was still uncertain ; Mandeville had hopes. 

“ And I don’t know that it’s exactly dishonest,” 
said Aunt Maria meditatively. 44 But that’s just 
like Sandro. He’s always doing things that you 
can’t be quite sure about — whether they’re straight 
or not, you know. He was just the same as a 
boy.” 

May had a sense of treachery in listening, but 
how should she not listen? Morewood’s opinion 
came into her memory. Miss Quisante was con- 
firming it out of her full acquaintance with its 
subject. 

44 1 gave him the money, it was his own, I’ve got 
nothing to show,” said Miss Quisante with her 
vinegary little smile. 

44 Perhaps he — he misunderstood what you 
meant; I mean, that you intended the money for 
any special purpose.” 

44 That’s exactly what he’ll say,” remarked Aunt 
Maria with a triumphant nod. 

44 But if it’s true ” 

44 1 sha’n’t know whether it’s true or not. That’s 
where Sandro’s cleverness comes in.” 

It was hard to realise that the old lady talked 
103 


QUISANTE 

of the man whom her hearer had seen on Duty 
Hill. 

44 I’m sure you don’t do him justice.” The plea 
sounded weak even to its utterer. 

44 To an ounce,” said Aunt Maria emphatically. 
May laughed. 44 I lived with him for twelve years, 
and I’m not a fool any more than he is. If you 
ask him about me, you’ll get the truth, and you get 
it when you ask me about him. After twelve years 
I ought to know.” 

“ You’ve read his speech ? ” May asked. 44 Isn’t 
it magnificent, parts of it anyhow ? ” 

44 Very few men have a brain like Sandro’s.” 

44 There I agree with you, Miss Quisante.” But 
May’s face was troubled as she added, a moment 
later, 44 He ought to give you back your money, 
though.” 

44 He will, if he makes a lot out of it, and he’ll 
give me a nice present too. Then he’ll feel that 
he’s acted quite properly all through. And if he 
loses it — well, as I say, he’s got his case, and I can’t 
prove anything.” 

44 Men like him are often careless about money 
affairs. It’s only that, I expect.” 

44 Careless ! Sandro careless ! Oh, dear me, no,” 
and for once Miss Quisante laughed heartily. The 
beads on her cap shook as her dumpy little form 
swayed gently with mirth ; she looked impishly de- 
lighted at such a misconception of her nephew’s 
character. May felt very foolish, but could not 
help laughing herself. 


104 


ADVICE FROM AUNT MARIA 


“ Well, I won’t plead his cause any more,” she 
said. 44 Only I believe you’re prejudiced.” She 
paused, and then, looking the old woman in the 
face, added, 44 1 ought to tell you that he and I 
have become great friends.” 

Miss Quisante had stopped laughing ; now she 
made a gesture which seemed to indicate that she 
washed her hands of any responsibility. But she 
appeared fretful and disturbed. 

44 I’m immensely impressed by him; and I think 
these faults you talk so much about are only super- 
ficial. They can’t really belong to his nature when 
so much that’s fine does.” Her voice shook a little 
as she implored a merciful judgment from the re- 
lentless old lady. Aunt Maria’s shrewd eyes grew 
softer. 

44 1 used to say that to myself for ever so long,” 
she said. 44 1 catch myself saying it now and then 
even now.” 

44 You’re disappointed at not — not getting on bet- 
ter with him, and it makes you bitter.” 

44 And you ? You get on very well with 
him ? ” 

44 1 don’t think I’m blind about him. I see what 
you mean and what a lot of people feel. If there 
is a pit, I’ve walked into it open-eyed. ” 

44 He’s in love with you, of course ? ” 

A denial was hardly worth while and quite use- 
less. 44 You must ask him that, Miss Quisante,” 
May replied. Aunt Maria nodded and gazed at 
her long and steadily. 


QUISANTE 

“Yes, you’re his Empress among women,” she 
said at last with a little sneer. “ Sandro has a 
phrase for everything and everybody. And are 
you in love with him ? ” 

May had wanted to come to close quarters and 
was glad that Aunt Maria gave her a lead. But 
she did not return a direct answer to the ques- 
tion. 

“ You wouldn’t be encouraging, if I were think- 
ing of becoming his wife.” 

“ It would be very extraordinary that you 
should.” 

“ I’ve no particular desire to be ordinary,” said 
May, smiling. 

Miss Quisante leant forward suddenly and held 
up a short forefinger. 

“ My dear, you’d be very unhappy,” she said. 
Then she leant back again and received in com- 
plete stillness May’s meditative gaze. 

“ In a good many ways perhaps I should,” said 
May at last with a sigh, and her brow puckered 
with wrinkles. “ Yes, I suppose so,” she sighed 
again. 

“ But I know what it is. You’ve let yourself 
get interested in Sandro ; you’ve let him lay hold 
of you.” May nodded. “And it would seem 
rather dull now to lose him?” Again May nod- 
ded, laughing a little. Aunt Maria understood her 
feelings very well, it seemed. “ I should be dull 
too if I lost him.” The old lady folded her hands 
in her lap. “ There is that about Sandro,” she said 
106 


ADVICE FROM AUNT MARIA 


with a touch of pride in her voice. “ I don’t like 
him ; well, you’ve gathered that perhaps ; but if 
anything happened to him, I should feel I might 
as well lie down and die. Of course I’ve got no- 
body else belonging to me; you’re not like that.” 
Again the forefinger was raised in admonition, and 
Miss Quisante gave a piece of practical advice. 
“ Marry a nice man of your own sort, my dear, and 
when you’re safely married, be as much interested 
in Sandro as you like.” 

May was not quite sure of the morality of this 
counsel ; it seemed possible that Aunt Maria 
shared the vagueness about right and wrong which 
she quarrelled with in her nephew. She laughed 
as she said, 

44 But then Mr. Quisante would marry some 
other woman, and she mightn’t like it. And my 
nice husband mightn’t like it.” 

It was possible to discuss the matter far more 
frankly with Miss Quisante than with anybody 
else, yet the talk with her was only the first of 
several in which May tried to glean what would be 
thought of such a step as marrying Alexander 
Quisante. Almost everywhere she found, not 
only the lack of encouragement which Aunt Maria 
had shown, but an amazement hardly distinguish- 
able from horror and an utter failure to under- 
stand her point of view ; her care to conceal any 
personal interest in the discussions she found means 
to bring about gained her very candid expressions 
of opinion about Quisante, and she became aware 
107 


QUISANTE 

that her world would regard her as something like 
a lunatic if it awoke one morning to read of her 
engagement to the man. 

Yet side by side with this feeling there was a 
great and a growing expectancy with regard to 
him in his public aspect. He began to be a figure, 
somebody of whom account would have to be 
taken; Dick Benyon’s infatuation was less often 
mentioned, his sagacity more often praised. May 
was struck again with the sharp line drawn be- 
tween the man himself and what he was to do, 
with the way in which everybody proposed to in- 
vite him to his house, but nobody contemplated 
admitting him to his heart. The inhumanity made 
her angry again, but she was alone in perceiv- 
ing it ; and she was half-aware that her perception 
of it would be far keener than Quisante s own. 
In fact it was very doubtful if he asked any more 
of the world than what the world was prepared to 
give him. But that, said May, was not because 
he lacked the power and the desire of love, but be- 
cause his affections were withered by neglect or 
rusty from disuse. She knew well that they were 
there and would expand under the influence of 
sympathy. If people grew human towards him, 
he would respond in kind ; in hitting on this idea 
she commended herself for a sagacity in questions 
of emotion not less than that which Dick Benyon 
had shown in matters of the intellect. Dick had 
discovered Quisante, as he thought ; May told her- 
self that he had discovered only half of Quisante, 
108 


ADVICE FROM AUNT MARIA 


and that the other half had been left for her to ex- 
plore, and to reveal to the world. The effect of 
her various conversations was rather to confirm her 
in her inclination towards Quisante than to fright- 
en her out of it. 

There was one talk which she could not escape 
and had to face with what resolution she might. 
Weston Marchmont was not content with the 
brief dismissal which had reached him from Ash- 
wood, and he was amazed beyond understanding 
at the hint of its cause which Dick Benyon had 
given him. He had no doubt some reason to 
think himself ill-used, but he was not inclined to 
press that side of the case. It was not his own 
failure so much as the threatened success of such 
a rival that staggered and horrified him. Few are 
wide- minded enough to feel a friendship quite un- 
touched and unimpaired when their friend takes 
into equal intimacy a third person for whom they 
themselves entertain aversion or contempt ; at the 
best they see in such conduct an unexpected fail- 
ure of discernment; very often they detect in it 
evidence of a startling coarseness of feeling, an in- 
sensibility, and a grossness of taste difficult to tol- 
erate in one to whom they have given their affec- 
tion. Marchmont felt that, if May Gaston wronged 
him, she was wronging far more herself, and most 
of all his ideal of her. He could not believe such 
a thing of her without her own plain assurance, 
and would not suffer it until every effort to redeem 
and rescue her was exhausted. 


QUISANTE 

“ You don’t mean,” he said at last openly and 
bluntly to Dick Benyon, “ that you think it’s pos- 
sible she’ll marry him ? ” 

“ I do, quite,” groaned poor Dick. “ You can 
imagine how I feel about it; and if I didn’t see it 
myself, Amy would soon let me know it.” 

Marchmont said no more, feeling that discussion 
was difficult for one in his position, but Dick did 
not spare him a description of what had happened 
at Ashwood, from which he realised the gravity of 
the danger. 

“After all, he’s a very remarkable man,” Dick 
pleaded, in a forlorn effort at defending himself no 
less than the lady. 

Marchmont found May in a mood most favour- 
able to the cause he had at heart, if he had known 
how to use his opportunity to the best advantage. 
From day to day now she wavered between the 
fear and the fascination, and on this day the fear 
was stronger and, working together with her affec- 
tion for Marchmont, might well have gained him 
the victory. Ill-usage of Quisante would perhaps 
have been involved here, but May would not have 
stood at that, had it been made plain to her heart 
that in the end the man could not be accepted or 
endured. To win, Marchmont should have made 
love to her in his own way, refused to accept his 
dismissal, and pressed his own suit on his own 
merits, leaving his rival to stand the contrast as he 
best might, but not dragging him explicitly into 
the issue between himself and May. He did not 
no 


ADVICE FROM AUNT MARIA 

take this course ; to his pride it was difficult to 
plead passionately again when his former pleading 
had been rebuffed ; and the intensity of his desire 
to show her the truth about Quisante, and at all 
costs to rescue her from Quisante, made him de- 
vote more energy to denouncing his rival than to 
recommending himself. Thus he set May to de- 
fend the absent friend rather than to pity and be 
drawn towards the suitor who was before her. 
Yet in spite of his mistaken tactics, he shook her 
sorely ; all that was in his favour came home to 
her with renewed force ; she looked on him with 
pleasure and heard his voice again with delight ; 
it was very pleasant to her to be with him ; she ad- 
mitted to herself that very, very easily she might 
be in love with him. Old Miss Quisante’s advice 
recurred to her mind ; was this the nice husband 
who would give her a safety not incompatible with 
a continued interest in Alexander Quisante ? She 
smiled regretfully; Marchmont did not fit at all 
into Aunt Maria’s scheme. 

44 I don’t want to question you,” he said, 4 4 but if 
you will speak plainly to me I shall be glad. The 
change came at Ash wood ? ” 

44 There’s been no change ; there’s been a failure 
to change. When I saw you last, I thought I 
might change so as to be able to do what you 
wanted. Now I know I can’t.” 

44 And why? ” She was silent ; he went on, speak- 
ing lower. 44 Is there any truth at all in what Dick 
Benyon thinks ? It seemed to me incredible. Will 
ill 


QUISANTE 

you tell me that I may utterly disbelieve that at all 
events ? ” 

“No, I can’t tell you to disbelieve it utterly.” 

The love for her which was his strongest appeal 
left his face ; he looked aghast, at a loss, almost dis- 
gusted. His hands moved in a gesture of protest. 

“ I don’t tell you to believe it. I can tell you 
nothing about it just now. I admit you had a 
right to ask me, but I can say nothing more now.” 

Again the chance offered for him to make her 
forget Quisante or remember him only by a disad- 
vantageous comparison. His honest desire to save 
her combined again with bitter prejudice to lead 
him wrong. 

“ I can’t believe it of you,” he declared. “ I can’t 
have been so wrong about you as that.” 

“ I see nothing to prevent you from having been 
absolutely wrong about me,” she said coldly, “as 
wrong about me as you are about — other people.” 

“ If you mean ” 

“ Oh, yes, let’s be open with one another,” she 
cried. “ 1 mean Mr. Quisante ; you’re utterly 
wrong and prejudiced about him.” 

“ He’s not even a gentleman.” 

“ I suppose he goes to the wrong tailor ! ” said 
May scornfully. 

He came a step nearer to her. “You know I 
don’t mean that sort of thing, nor even other things 
that aren’t vital to life though they’re desirable in 
society. He hasn’t the mind of a gentleman.” 

Now she wavered ; she sat looking at him with 
112 


ADVICE FROM AUNT MARIA 


troubled eyes, feeling he was right, desiring to be 
persuaded, struggling against the opposing force. 
But Marchmont went on fretfully, almost peevishly, 

“The astonishing thing is that you’re blind to 
that, that you don’t see him as he really and truly 
is.” 

“That’s just what I do,” she cried eagerly and 
almost angrily. Marchmont’s words had brought 
back what Quisante could be ; surely a man’s best 
must be what he really and truly is ? Then his 
true self shows itself untrammelled; the measure 
of it is rather the heights to which it can rise than 
the level on which it moves at ordinary times. She 
remembered Quisante on Duty Hill. “ That’s 
what I do, and you — you and all of them — don’t. 
You fix on his small faults, faults of manner — oh, 
yes, and of breeding too, I daresay, perhaps of 
feeling too. But to see a man’s faults is not to see 
the man.” She rose to her feet and faced him. “ I 
see him more truly than you do,” she said proudly 
and defiantly. Then her face grew suddenly soft, 
and she caught his hand. “My dear friend, my 
dear, dear friend,” she murmured, “don’t be un- 
kind to me. I’m not happy about it; how can I 
be happy about it ? Don’t make it worse for me ; 
I’m trying to see the truth, and you might help 
me; but you only tell me what leaves out more 
than half the truth.” 

He would not or could not respond to her 
gentleness; his evil spirit possessed him ; he gave 
expression to his anger with her and his scorn of 
113 


QUISANTE 

his rival, not to his own love and his own tender- 
ness. 

“ It turns me almost sick,” he declared, “ to 
think of you with him.” 

She let go his hand, moved away, and sat down. 
“ If you’re like that, I can say no more,” she said. 
Her eyes were full of tears as she looked at him, 
but his heart was hard to her ; to him she seemed 
to be humiliating both him and herself; the victory 
of Quisante at once insulted him and degraded her. 
Here was a case where Alexander Quisante, with 
all his defects, would have gone right, while March- 
mont went wrong. It was a crisis, and Quisante’s 
insight would have taught him how to handle it, to 
assure her that whatever she did he would be the 
same to her, that though he might not understand 
he would be loyal, that his love only grew greater 
with his pain, that in everything that awaited her 
he would be ready with eager service and friendship 
unimpaired. None of this came from Marchmont’s 
lips ; he made no effort to amend or palliate his last 
bitter speech. He could not conquer his resentment, 
and it bred an answering resentment in her. “ You 
must think what you like of me,” she said, her voice 
growing cold again. 

With the end of this interview, with the depart- 
ure of Marchmont, still sore, angry, and blind to her 
point of view, May felt that the matter had settled 
itself. She knew in her heart that she would not 
have turned Marchmont away unless she had meant 
to bid Quisante come. For a little while she strug- 


ADVICE FROM AUNT MARIA 


gled against finality, telling herself that the question 
was still an open one, and that to refuse one man 
was not of necessity to marry another. Other 
friends came and talked to her, but none of them 
got within her guard or induced her to speak freely 
to them. In the end she had to settle this thing 
for herself; and now it was settled. 

Even when undertaken in the conviction of a full 
harmony of feeling, a community of mind and an 
identity of tastes, marriage may startle by the ex- 
tent of its demands. She was to marry a man — 
she faced the matter and told herself this — a 
man from whom she was divided by the training of 
a lifetime, by antagonisms of feeling so acute as to 
bite deep into their every-day intercourse, by a jar- 
ring of tastes which made him sometimes odious to 
her. In spite of the resentment to which March- 
mont’s scorn had stung her, she understood very 
well how it was that her friends failed to appreciate 
the motives of her action. To herself she could 
not justify it ; it was taken on impulse, not calcula- 
tion, and had to rest in the end on the vague effects 
of what she had seen in Quisante, not continually, 
not in his normal state, but by fits and snatches, in 
scraps of time which, all added together, would 
scarcely fill the hours between luncheon and din- 
ner. She took him on the strength of his moments ; 
that was the case in plain English, reduced to 
its lowest terms and its baldest statement. Of 
confidence, of security, of trust she had none ; their 
place was filled by a vague expectancy, an insistent 
115 


QU1SANTE 

curiosity, and a puzzled fearful fascination. Not 
promising materials these, out of which to make 
happiness. She surprised herself by finding how 
little happiness in its ordinary sense entered into 
her reckoning. Or if anything that we happen to 
want is to be called our happiness, then her happi- 
ness consisted in, and refused to be analysed into 
anything more definite than, a sort of necessity 
which she felt of being near to Alexander Quisante, 
of sharing his mind and partaking of his life. But 
if this were happiness, then happiness was not what 
she had been accustomed to think it ; where were 
the rest, the contentment, the placidity and satis- 
faction which the word was usually considered to 
imply ? 

Quisante came to her, wreathed in triumph. It 
was a mood she liked him in; he offended her 
not when he celebrated success, but when he in- 
trigued for it. His new-born confidence seemed to 
make any drawing-back on her part impossible ; she 
had sent him, she was bound to reward the happy 
issue of her mission. Another thing touched her 
very deeply ; while protesting his unworthiness of 
her, he based his humility on the special and won- 
derful knowledge of her that he possessed and re- 
ferred it entirely to this inner secret excellence of 
hers and not in the least to her position or to any 
difference between his and hers. He did not sup- 
pose that society would be aghast or that the world 
at large would see cause for dismay in the marriage. 

116 


ADVICE FROM AUNT MARIA 


He expected hearty congratulations for himself, but 
it was evident that he thought she would have her 
full share of them too ; he had, in fact, no idea that 
May Gaston would not be thought to be doing very 
well for herself. This mixture of simplicity and 
self-appreciation, of ignorance of the mind of others 
combined with a knowledge of the claims of his 
own, took May’s fancy ; she laughed a little as she 
determined that the general opinion of the matter 
must be kept from his ears, and his robust confidence 
in the world’s admiration of him preserved. 

“ You say you know me so well,” she said. “ I 
know very, very little of you ; and of what I know 
there’s a lot that’s bad.” 

He was not in the temper that had inspired his 
confession of bad manners and bad morals on 
Duty Hill. He was inclined, as at such a moment 
he might be pardonably, to make light of his 
faults. He was not alarmed when she declared 
that if she found out anything very bad she would 
not after all become his wife. 

<e At any moment that you repent, you’re free,” 
he said gaily. But she answered gravely, 

“ There’ll be a great many moments when I 
shall repent. You see I don’t think I really love 
you.” He looked puzzled. “ You know what I 
mean? Real love is so beautifully undiscriminat- 
ing, isn’t it? I’m not a bit undiscriminating about 
you ; and that’ll make me miserable often ; it’ll 
make you angry too. You’ll forget that I said all 
this, that I told you and warned you. I shall be 
117 


QUISANTE 

(she smiled again for a moment) a critic on the 
hearth. And nobody hardly understands criticism 
as badly as you do.” 

“ What a lot of reasons for refusing me ! ” he 
said, still gay, though with a hint of disturbance in 
his manner. “ And yet you don’t refuse.” 

The old answer which was all she could give to 
herself was all that she found herself able to give 
him. 

“ Somehow I can’t do without you, you see,” 
she said. Then she suddenly leant forward and 
went on in a low imploring voice, “ Don’t be 
worse than I’ve ever thought. There are some 
things I couldn’t stand. Please don’t.” Her eyes, 
fixed on to his, prayed a reassurance against a 
horde of vague dangers. 

He laughed off the question, not understanding 
how or why she came to put it, and their talk 
passed to a fighter vein. But presently he said, 
with a half-embarrassed, half- vexed laugh, “Need 
we sit so far from one another? ” 

May had suffered from a dread of the beginning 
of sentiment. But she was laughing as she rose 
and, crossing the room, sat down by him on the 
sofa. “ Here I am then,” she said, “ and you may 
kiss me. And if you will ask me I’ll kiss you; 
only I don’t particularly want to, you know. 1 
don’t think of you in the very least as a man to be 
kissed. I’ve thought of other men much more 
in that way — oh, only thought of them, Mr. 
Quisante ! ” 


118 


ADVICE FROM AUNT MARIA 


The playful, yet not meaningless, defiance of a 
softer mood, and of his power to induce it in her, 
acted as a spark to Quisante’s ardour. It was just 
the opposition that he had wanted to rescue him 
from awkwardness. He recovered the splendid 
intensity which had marked his declaration on 
Duty Hill. If he did not succeed in changing her 
feelings, at least he set her wondering why they 
did not change and wrung from her the smiling 
admission, “ You’re very picturesque anyhow.” 
She did not deny vehemently when he told her 
that he would make her love him as he loved her. 
“ Well, I never use the word impossible about 
you,” she said. “ Only — it hasn’t happened yet, 
you know.” She paused and added, with a touch 
of reviving apprehension, “ And I mayn’t always 
like you to behave as if it had — though I don’t 
mind much to-night.” 

His manner was good, almost defying criticism, 
as he reassured her on this point; and when he 
left her, her predominant impression was that, so 
far as their personal relations went, she had ex- 
aggerated the dangers and under-rated the attrac- 
tions. 

“ I think he’ll always be rather nice to me and 
not do anything very dreadful. But then, what 
will he do to other people? ” 

This was the fear which still possessed her and 
which no fine moment of his drove out. She 
seemed to have power to bring him to his best, to 
give him the cue for his fine scenes, to create in 


QUISANTE 


him the inspiration to great moments. But when 
he dealt with other people, her power would be 
useless. She would have to stand by and see him 
at his worst, looking on no longer as an irrespon- 
sible, as well as a helpless, spectator, but as one 
who had undertaken responsibility for him, who 
must feel for him what he did not for himself, who 
must be sensitive while he was callous, wounded 
while his skin went unpierced. She felt that she 
had taken up a very solitary position, between him 
and the world, not truly at home with either; a 
sense of loneliness came upon her. 

“ I shall have to fight the whole world,” she said. 
“ I wonder if my cause is a good one? ” 


120 


CHAPTER VIII 


CONTRA MUNDUM 

It was impossible not to admire the wealth of ex- 
perience which Mrs. Baxter had gathered from a 
singularly quiet life; many men have gone half a 
dozen times round the world for less. Whatever 
the situation, whatever the action, she could sup- 
ply a parallel and thereby forecast an issue. Super- 
ficial differences did not hinder her ; she pierced 
to the underlying likeness. When all the world 
was piteously crying out that never in its life had 
it heard of such an affair as this of May Gastons, 
Mrs. Baxter dived into her treasure- chest and 
serenely produced the case of the Nonconformist 
Ministers daughter and the Circus Proprietor. 
Set this affair side by side with the Quisante bush 
ness, and a complete sum in double proportion at 
once made its appearance. The audacity of the 
man, the headlong folly of the girl, the hopeless 
mixing of incompatibles were common to the two 
cases ; the issue of the earlier clearly indicated the 
fate that must attend the later. Lady Richard 
could do nothing but gasp out, “ And what hap- 
pened, Mrs. Baxter ? ” 

Mrs. Baxter told her, punctuating the story with 
stitches on a June petticoat. 

“ She ran away from him twice; but he brought 
121 


QUISANTE 

her back, and, they said, beat her well. At any 
rate she ended by settling down to her new life. 
They had seven children, all brought up to the cir- 
cus ; only the other day one was sent to prison for 
ill-treating the dancing bear. He’s dead, but she 
still keeps the circus under his name. Of course all 
her old friends have dropped her ; indeed I hear she 
drinks. Her father still preaches once on Sundays.” 

It was easy to disentangle the relevant from the 
merely reminiscent ; the running away, the beating, 
the settling down, the complete absorption in the 
new life (vividly indicated by the seven children and 
their habits), stood out saliently. Add the attitude 
of old friends, and Lady Richard could not deny 
the value of the parallel. She acknowledged it 
with a long-drawn sigh. 

“ May Gaston must be mad,” she observed. “ You 
can imagine how Dick feels about it ! ” 

“ And all the while her cousin in the Bank was 
quite ready to marry her and give her a nice little 
home. He was Church and sang in the choir at 
St. Dunstan’s.” 

Without consciously appreciating the nicety of 
the parallel here, Lady Richard began to think of 
Weston Marchmont. 

“ I suppose Mr. Marchmont’ll take Fanny now,” 
she said. “ I don’t know, though ; he won’t like 
any sort of connection with Alexander Quisante. 
How selfish people are ! They never think of what 
their marriages mean to their relations.” 

This observation expressed a large part of what 
122 


CONTRA MUNDUM 


was felt by society ; add friends to relations, and it 
summed up one side of the indictment against May 
Gaston. Lady Attlebridge’s helpless and bewil- 
dered woe was one instance of its truth, Fanny’s 
rage another ; to look farther afield, May’s friends 
and acquaintances discovered great cause for vexa- 
tion in that they saw themselves somehow “ let in 
for ” Quisante. At least the alternative was to drop 
May Gaston as entirely as the unfortunate circus 
proprietor’s wife had been dropped ; and this alter- 
native was a difficult one. Had Quisante’s raid re- 
sulted in the seizure of some insignificant colourless 
girl who had been merely tolerated for the sake of 
who she was without possessing any claims in respect 
of what she was, the dropping would have been 
easy; but May was not of that kind. She was not 
only one of them, but very conspicuous among 
them, one of their ornaments, one in whom they 
took pride ; they would have acknowledged in her 
a natural leader so soon as a suitable marriage gave 
her the necessary status and experience. Her 
treachery was the more flagrant, Quisante’s pre- 
sumption the more enormous, their own course of 
action the more puzzling to decide. 

Yet in their hearts they knew that they must 
swallow the man ; events were too strong for them. 
Dick Benyon had forced him on them in one side 
of life, May Gaston now did the like in another ; 
henceforward he must be and would be among 
them. This consciousness mingled an ingredient 
of asperity with their genuine pity for May. She 


QUISANTE 

would not merely have herself to thank for the 
troubles which would certainly come upon her ; her 
misfortunes must be regarded as in part a proper 
punishment for the annoyance she was inflicting on 
her friends. As for Dick Benyon, it was impossi- 
ble to speak to him without perceiving that if re- 
morse be in truth the sharpest penalty of sin, he 
was already punished enough. 

The poor man’s state was indeed such as to move 
compassion. Besides his old friend Lady Attle- 
bridge’s dumbly accusing eyes, besides Fanny’s and 
Lady Richard’s by no means dumb reproaches, a 
very heavy blow had fallen on him. In the words 
of his own complaint, his brother Jimmy had gone 
back on him — and back on his allegiance to Alex- 
ander Quisante. The engagement was too much 
for Jimmy, and in the revulsion of feeling he became 
downright hostile to Quisante’s claims and pre- 
tensions. How could he not when Fanny Gaston 
imperiously and almost tearfully commanded him 
to attach himself to her banner, and to behold with 
her eyes the indignity suffered by the noble family 
of Gaston ? Logic was not Jimmy’s strong point, 
and he confounded poor Dick by the twofold asser- 
tion that the thing was utterly incredible, and that 
Dick and he had been most inconceivably idiotic 
not to have foreseen it from the first hour that 
they took up Quisante. In this stress of feeling 
the brothers spoke to one another with candour. 

“ You know how I feel about Fanny,” said Jimmy, 
“ so you can imagine how much I like it.” 

124 


CONTRA MUNDUM 


“Oh, yes, I know; and I quite understand that 
you wanted Marchmont to marry May,” Dick re- 
torted in an alien savageness born of his wounded 
spirit. 

Jimmy was taken aback by this direct onslaught, 
but his native honesty forbade him to deny the 
charge point-blank. 

“ Supposing she came to like me,” he grumbled, 
“it wouldn’t be over and above pleasant to have 
Quisante for a brother-in-law.” 

Dick was roused ; he summoned up his old faith 
and his old admiration. 

“ I tell you what,” he said, “ the only chance you 
have of your name being known to posterity is if 
you succeed in becoming his brother-in-law.” 

“ Damn posterity,” said Jimmy, tugging at his 
moustache. He had never entertained the absurd 
idea of interesting future ages. He began to per- 
ceive more and more clearly how ridiculous his 
brother had made himself over the fellow ; he had 
shared in the folly, but now at least he could repent 
and dissociate himself from it. 

“What does the Dean say?” he asked mali- 
ciously. 

“I dare say you won’t understand,” Dick an- 
swered in measured tones, “but the Dean’s got 
sense enough to say nothing. Talking’s no use, 
is it? ” 

Few indeed shared the Dean’s wisdom, or the 
somewhat limited view that talking is only to be 
practised when it chances to be useful. Are we 
9 125 


QUISANTE 

never to discuss the obvious or to deplore the in- 
evitable ? From so stern a code human nature re- 
volts, and the storm of volubility went on in spite 
of the silence of the Dean of St. Neot’s. Even this 
silence was imperfect in so far as the Dean said a 
word or two in private to Morewood when he vis- 
ited him in his studio, and the pair were looking at 
Quisante’s picture. Dick Benyon was less anxious 
now to have it finished and sent home in the short- 
est possible time. 

“ You’ve seen some good in him,” said the Dean, 
pointing to the picture. 

“Well — something anyhow,” said Morewood. 

“ I think, you know,” the Dean pursued medita- 
tively, “ that a great woman might succeed in what 
she’s undertaken (Morewood did not need the men- 
tion of May Gaston’s name), at the cost of sacri- 
ficing all her other interests and most of her feel- 
ings.” 

Morewood was lighting his pipe and made no 
answer. 

“Is our dear young friend a great woman, 
though ? ” asked the Dean. 

“ She aspires to be,” said Morewood ; he was 
sneering as usual, but rather at aspirations in gen- 
eral than at any unusual absurdity in May Gaston’s ; 
thus at least the Dean understood him. 

“You mean that that’s at the bottom of the 
trouble ? ” he inquired, smiling a little. 

“ Oh, yes,” answered Morewood, weary of indi- 
cating what was so apparent. 

126 


CONTRA MUNDUM 


“You’ve dived down to something in that pict- 
ure ; perhaps she has.” 

“ Yes, she has.” Morewood looked straight at 
the Dean as he added, “ But I can leave out the 
other things, you see. That’s the difference.” 

“And she can’t? No. That is the difference. 
She’ll have to live with the other things.” He 
looked courageously at Morewood and ended, “ We 
must trust in God.” Either the sincerity or the 
unexpectedness of the remark kept Morewood 
silent. 

No such ambition as these two imputed to her 
consciously animated May Gaston. Just now she 
was content if she could persuade her mother that 
people after all said nothing very dreadful (for what 
was said was always more to Lady Attlebridge than 
what was true), could keep on something like 
friendly relations with her sister, and could main- 
tain a cheerful view of her own position and of her 
experiment. Inevitably the hostility of his future 
mother-in-law and of Fanny brought out the worst 
side of Quisante’s manners ; in the effort to concili- 
ate he almost fawned. May had to find consola- 
tion in a growth of openness and simplicity towards 
herself. And she had one notable triumph which 
more than anything else brought her through the 
trial with her purpose unshaken and her faith even 
a little strengthened. It was not a complete 
triumph, and in trying to push it too far she suf- 
fered a slight rebuff ; but there was hope to be had 
from it, it seemed to open a prospect of successes 
127 


QUISANTtf 

more ample. She made Quisant£ send back Aunt 
Maria’s five hundred pounds before Mr. Mande- 
ville’s operations had resulted either in safety or in 
gain. 

“You see, she never gave it you to use in 
speculation,” she had said. “It isn’t right, you 
must see it isn’t. Have you got the money ? ” 

“ Yes ; but I meant to buy you ” 

“No, no, I wouldn’t have it. Now do send it 
back. I know you see what I mean.” Her voice 
grew doubtful and imploring. 

“ Oh, yes, in a way. But I shan’t lose it, you 
know.” 

“ That doesn’t make the least difference.” 

“ If it pleases you, I’ll send it back.” 

“Well, do,” she said with a little sigh. The mo- 
tive was not that which she wished to rouse, but 
very likely it was that with which she must begin 
her work. Then she tried the further step. “ And 
any profit you make, if you make any, you ought 
to send too,” she said. 

Genuine surprise was exhibited on Quisant^’s 
face. “What, after sending back the five hun- 
dred ? ” he asked. 

“ Yes, you ought.” She made a little concession 
by adding, “ Strictly, you know.” Quisante looked 
at her, kissed her hand, and laughed. Her sense 
of humour, which she began to perceive would 
rather hamper her, made her join in the laugh. 
“ Do you think me very absurd ? No, no, not com- 
pliments ! Truth, truth always ! ” 

128 


CONTRA MUNDUM 


“ I call the suggestion rather — well, rather fanci- 
ful,” said he. 

“ Yes, I suppose you do,” she sighed. “ Do you 
know what I hope ? ” she went on. “ I hope that 
some day that sort of suggestion will seem a matter 
of course to you.” 

He stopped laughing and looked put out. She 
saw that his vanity was hurt. “ But I hope all 
sorts of unusual things about you,” she went on, 
her conscience rebuking her for using the wile of 
flattery. But it served well ; the cloud passed from 
his face, as he begged her not to expect to see him 
a saint too soon. 

A few days later he came in radiant ; the opera- 
tion had gone splendidly, there was a cent, per cent, 
profit ; she was to come with him and buy the neck- 
lace at once. May loved necklaces and liked him 
for being so eager to give her one. And she did 
not wish to appear in the light of a prig (that had 
probably been his impression of her) again so soon. 
But had he not the evening before, as they talked 
over their prospects, told her that he owed Dick 
Benyon a thousand pounds or more, and was in 
arrears with the instalments by which the debt was 
to be liquidated ? By a not unnatural turn of her 
mind she found herself less able to allow him to 
forget his obligation, less able to indulge him in the 
temporary extravagance of a lover, than if he had 
been a man on whose punctilious honour in all 
matters of money she relied absolutely. She 
was more affectionate and more effusive to him 
129 


QUISANTE 

than usual, and it was with a kiss that she whis- 
pered, 

“ Give me the money, not the necklace.” 

“ The money ? ” he said in surprise. 

“Yes, to do what I like with. At least give me 
your promise to do what I ask with it.” 

He was suspicious and his face showed it. She 
laughed. “Yes, I’m worrying again,” she said. 
“ I can now, you see. When were married I 
shan’t have the power.” 

“ You’ll always have absolute power over me.” 

“ Oh, I wish that was true! ” she said. “No, I 
don’t,” came an instant later. “ If I thought that, 
I’d never speak to you again.” Moving away a 
little, she turned her head back towards him and 
went on, “ Use it to pay Dick Benyon. I’d rather 
you did that than give me a thousand necklaces.” 

“ Oh, Dick’s in no hurry ; he’s got lots of money.” 
Quisante was visibly vexed this time. “ Aren’t you 
going to allow me to give you anything ? ” he 
asked. 

She had a struggle to win this time, and again 
had to call in the ally she distrusted, an appeal to 
his vanity. She told him that it hurt her idea, her 
great idea, of him, that he should be in any way 
under obligations to or dependent on anybody. 
This way of putting the matter caught his fancy, 
which had remained blind to the more prosaic as- 
pect of the case. “You must stand by your own 
strength,” she said. She had to go a step farther 
still. “ It’ll make Amy Benyon quite angry too ; 

130 


CONTRA MUNDUM 


it’ll take away one other grievances. Don’t pay 
only the arrears, pay all you can.” Thus she 
won and was comforted, in spite of her suspicion of 
the weapons that she found herself obliged to use. 

Comfort she needed sadly, and it could come 
only from Quisante himself. For the rest the sense 
of loneliness was strong upon her, and with it a bit- 
terness that this time in her life should be so dif- 
ferent from what it was in the lives of most girls. 
The superficial were there ; friends sent presents 
and Lady Attlebridge was as particular about the 
gowns and so forth as though the match had been 
absolutely to her liking. But there was no sincere 
congratulation, no sympathy, no envy. Her en- 
gagement was a mistake, her marriage a tragedy; 
that was the verdict ; she saw it in every glance 
and discerned it under every civil speech. The 
common judgment, the opinion of the group we 
have lived with, has a force irrespective of its 
merit ; there were times when May sank under the 
burden of it and almost retreated. Then she was 
outwardly most contented, took Quisante every- 
where with her, tried (as people said) to thrust him 
down everybody’s throat, even pretended a love 
which she had expressly denied to the man himself. 
All this done, she would fly to solitude and there 
be a victim to her fears, shudder at the risk she had 
elected to run, and pray for any strange convulsion 
of events to rescue her. 

None came ; time went on, people settled down 
to the notion ; only to a small circle the matter 
131 


QUISANTE 

retained a predominant interest. The rest of the 
world could not go on talking about it for ever; 
they had a number of other people’s affairs to attend 
to, and the vagaries of one fanciful young woman 
could not occupy their important minds for ever. 
None the less, they turned away with a pleasant 
sense that they might find good reason for turning 
back presently ; let a year or two of the marriage 
run, and there might be something to look at 
again. 

But to one man the thing never became less 
strange, less engrossing, or less horrible. Weston 
Marchmont abandoned as pure folly the attempt 
to accustom his mind to it or to acquiesce in it ; 
he had not the power to cease to think of it. It 
was unnatural ; to that he returned always ; and it 
ousted what surely was natural, what his whole 
being cried out was meant, if there were such a 
thing as a purpose in human lives at all. Disguised 
by his habit of self-repression before others, his 
passion was as strong as Quisante’s own ; it was 
backed by a harmony of tastes and a similarity of 
training which gave it increased intensity ; it had 
been encouraged by an apparent promise of success, 
now turned to utter failure. Amy Benyon might 
think that he would now marry Fanny, if only he 
could endure such an indirect connection with Qui- 
sante. To himself it seemed so impossible to think 
of anyone but May that in face of facts he could 
not believe that he was not foremost in her heart. 
The facts meant marriage, it seemed ; he denied 
132 


CONTRA MUNDUM 


that they meant love. He discerned what May had 
said to Quisante — although not of course that she 
had said it — and it filled him with a more unendur- 
able revolt. He might have tolerated a defeat in 
love ; not to be defeated and yet to suffer all the 
pains of the vanquished was not to be borne. But 
he was helpless, and when he had tried to plead his 
cause he had done himself no good. He had rather 
so conducted himself as to give May Gaston the 
right to shut the door on any further friendship 
with him ; towards her future husband he had never 
varied from an attitude of cool disdain. It was 
more than a month since he had seen her, it was 
longer since he had done more than nod carelessly 
to Quisante as they passed one another in the lobby 
or the smoking-room. 

Then one day, a fortnight before the marriage, 
he met Quisante as they were both leaving the 
House about four o’clock. On a sudden impulse 
he joined his rival. He knew his man ; Quisante 
received him with friendliness and even effusion, and 
invited him to join him in a call at Lady Attle- 
bridge’s. They went on together, Quisante elated 
at this new evidence of his power to reconcile 
opposition and conciliate support, Marchmont filled 
with a vague painful curiosity and a desire to see 
the two together at the cost of any suffering the 
sight might bring him. 

The drawing-room at Lady Attlebridge’s was a 
double room ; in one half May sat reading, in the 
other her mother dozed. May rose with a start as 
133 


QUISANTE 

the men entered together ; her face flushed as she 
greeted Marchmont and bade Quisante go and pay 
his respects to her mother. 

“ I hardly expected ever to see you again,” she 
said. 44 And I didn’t expect Mr. Quisante to bring 
you.” Her tone was oddly expressive at once of 
pleasure and regret, of anticipation and fear. 
46 Have you made friends ? ” she asked. 

He answered under the impulse of his mood. 

44 We must make friends,” he said, 44 or I shall 
never see any more of you.” 

44 1 thought you didn’t want to.” She liked him 
too well not to show a little coquetry, a little chal- 
lenge. 

44 1 thought so too, or tried to think so.” 

44 1 was sure you had deserted me. You said 
such — well, such severe things.” 

44 1 say them all still.” 

44 But here you are ! ” she cried, laughing. 

44 Yes, here I am,” said he, but he was grave and 
looked intently at her. She grew red again as she 
met his gaze, and frowned a little. 

44 I’m not sure I’m glad you’ve come after all,” 
she said after a pause. 44 Why have you come? I 
don’t quite understand.” 

44 I’ve come to see you, to look on at your happi- 
ness,” he answered. 

44 You’ve no right to talk like that.” 

They became silent. From the inner room they 
heard Lady Attlebridge’s nervous efforts at conver- 
sation and Quisante’s fluent, too fluent, responses. 

134 


CONTRA MUNDUM 


He was telling the good lady about her great so- 
cial influence, and, little as she liked him, she 
seemed to listen eagerly. Marchmont looked at 
May and smiled. He was disappointed when she 
returned his smile. 

“ He’s a little too much of a politician, isn’t he?” 
she asked. 

Her refusal to perceive the insinuation of his 
smile made him ashamed of it. 

“We all are, when we’ve something to get, I 
suppose,” he said with a shrug. 

“ Oh, I don’t think you need reproach yourself,” 
she exclaimed, laughing. 

There was a short pause. Then he said suddenly, 

“ You’re the one person in the world to talk to.” 

Now she neither laughed nor yet rebuked him, 
and, as his eyes met hers, he seemed to have no 
fear that she would do either the one or the other. 
Yet he could not quite understand her look ; did 
she pity him or did she entreat for herself? For 
his life he could not answer. The only thing he 
knew was that she would follow her path and take 
for husband the man who flattered Lady Attle- 
bridge in the inner room. Then she spoke in a 
low voice. 

“Yes, do come, come and see us afterward, come 
as often as you like.” He raised his eyes to hers 
again. “ Because the oftener you come, the more 
you’ll understand him, and the better you under- 
stand him, the better you’ll know why I’m doing 
what I am.” 


135 


QUISANTE 

The soft look of pity or of entreaty vanished 
from her eyes now. She seemed to speak in a 
strong and even defiant confidence. But he met 
her with a resolute dissent. 

“ If you want me, I’ll come. But I sha’n’t under- 
stand why you did what you’re doing and I shall 
never see in him what you want me to see.” He 
looked round and saw Quisante preparing to join 
them. “ Am I to come, then? ” he asked. 

Quisante was walking towards them; she an- 
swered with a nervous laugh, “ I think you must 
come sometimes anyhow.” Then she raised her 
voice and said to Quisante, “ I’m telling Mr* 
Marchmont that I shall expect to see him often at 
our house.” 

Quisante seconded her invitation with more than 
adequate enthusiasm ; if Marchmont were converted 
to him, who could still be obstinate ? The two men 
began to talk, May falling more and more into 
silence. She did not accuse Marchmont of delib- 
erate malice, but by chance or the freak of some 
mischievous demon everything he said led Quisante 
on to display his weaknesses. She knew that 
Marchmont marked them every one; he was too 
well bred to show his consciousness by so much as 
the most fleeting glance at her ; yet she could have 
met such a glance with understanding, yes, with 
sympathy, and would have had to summon up by 
artificial effort the resentment that convention de- 
manded of her. The sight of the two men brought 
home to her with a new and an almost terrible 
136 


CONTRA MUNDUM 


sharpness the divorce between her emotional liking 
and her intellectual interest. And in a matter 
which all experience declared to concern the emo- 
tions primarily, she had elected to give foremost 
place to the intellect, to suffer under an ever recur- 
ring jar of the feelings for the sake of an occasional 
treat to the brain. That was her prospect unless 
she could transform the nature of Alexander Qui- 
santd “ Marry a nice man of your own sort, and 
then be as much interested as you like in Sandro.” 
Aunt Maria’s advice echoed in her ears as she 
watched the two men round whom the struggle of 
her soul centred, the struggle that she had thought 
was finished on the day when she promised to be- 
come Alexander Quisante’s wife. 

“I shall keep you both to your word,” said 
Marchmont when he left them. May nodded, 
smiling slightly. Quisante said all and more than 
all the proper things. 


137 


CHAPTER IX 


LEAD US NOT 

After a long sojourn in kindlier climates, Miss 
Quisante returned to England some eighteen 
months after May Gaston’s marriage. From vari- 
ous hotels and boarding-houses she had watched 
with an interested eye the progress of public affairs 
so far as they concerned her nephew. She had seen 
how his name became more prominent and was 
more frequently mentioned, how the hopes and 
fears about him grew, how he had gained glory by 
dashing sorties in defence of the severely-pressed 
Government garrison; if the garrison decided (as 
rumour said they would) to sally out and try fortune 
in the open field of a General Election, and proved 
victorious, it could not be doubted that they would 
bestow a handsome reward on their gallant defender. 
Quisante bid fair to eclipse his rivals and to justify 
to the uttermost Dick Benyon’s sagacity and en- 
thusiasm. The bitterness of the foe told the same 
story ; unless a man is feared, he is not caricatured 
in a comic paper in the guise of a juggler keeping 
three balls in the air at once, the said balls being 
each of them legibly inscribed with one of the three 
words, “ Gas — Gabble — Grab.” Such a straining of 
the usual amenity of controversy witnesses to grave 
138 


LEAD US NOT 


apprehension. Miss Quisante in her pension at 
Florence smiled contentedly. 

Of his private life her information had not been 
very ample. She had heard several times from May, 
but May occupied her pen chiefly with her hus- 
band’s political aims. She had heard once from 
Sandro himself, when he informed her that his wife 
had borne him a daughter and that all had gone very 
well indeed. Again Miss Quisante smiled approv- 
ingly. She sent her love to May and expressed 
to Sandro the hope that the baby would resemble 
its mother in appearance, constitution, and disposi- 
tion ; the passage was a good example of that ex - 
pressio unius which is a most emphatic and unmis- 
takable exclusio alterius. In the letter she enclosed 
a cheque for three hundred pounds ; the pensions 
were cheaper than the flat, and thus this service had 
become possible. 

The Quisantes had taken a house in Grosvenor 
Road, near W estminster for Quisante’s convenience, 
by the river, in obedience to his wife’s choice. Here 
Miss Quisante was welcomed by her nephew’s wife 
and shown her nephew’s daughter. May watched 
the old lady’s face as she perfunctorily kissed and 
critically inspected the infant. 

‘ 4 Gaston!” said Aunt Maria at last; relief was 
clamorous in her tone. 

“Yes, Miss Quisantd, Gaston, I think,” said 
May, laughing. 

The nurse admitted the predominance of Gaston, 
but with a professional keenness of eye began to 
139 


QUISANTE 

point out minor points in which the baby “fa- 
voured ” her father. 

44 Nonsense, my good woman,” snapped Aunt 
Maria. 44 The child’s got two legs and tw r o arms, 
I suppose, as its father has, but that’s all the 
likeness.” Somewhat ruffled (her observations had 
been well meant) the nurse carried off her charge. 

44 You look very well,” Aunt Maria went on, 44 but 
older, my dear.” 

“ I am both well and older,” said May cheerfully. 
“ Think of my responsibilities ! There’s the baby ! 
And then Alexander’s been seedy. And we aren’t 
as rich as we should like to be ; you of all people 
must know that. And there’s going to be an elec- 
tion and our seat’s very shaky. So the cares of 
the world are on me.” 

44 Sandro’s been doing well.” 

44 Splendidly, simply splendidly. It’s impossible 
to doubt that he’ll do great things if — if all goes 
well, and he doesn’t make mistakes.” 

44 Seems like making mistakes, does he ? ” 

44 Oh, no. I only said 4 if.’ ” 

44 And you’re as happy as you expected to be ? ” 

44 Quite, thanks.” 

44 1 see. Just about,” was Miss Quisante’s next 
observation ; since it was a little hard to answer, 
May smiled and rang the bell for tea. 

44 You’re very gay, I suppose?” asked the old 
lady. 

44 J ust as many parties as I can find gowns for,” 
May declared. 


140 


LEAD US NOT 


“ Seen anything of the Benyons lately ? ” 

A little shadow came on May’s face. 44 I hardly 
ever see Jimmy except ^t mother’s,” she answered. 

44 Dick comes sometimes.” She paused a moment, 
and then added, 44 1 expect him this afternoon.” 

44 Is he still as devoted to Sandro ? ” 

44 He believes in his abilities as enthusiastically as 
ever.” The dry laugh which Miss Quisant£ gave 
was as significant as her 44 Just about,” a few minutes / 
before. This time May did not laugh, but looked 
gravely at Aunt Maria. 44 They’ve had a little dif- 
ference on a political matter. Did you ever hear of 
what Dick calls the Crusade ? His great Church 
movement, you know.” 

44 Lord, yes, my dear. Sandro once speechified 
to me about it for an hour.” 

44 W ell, he doesn’t speechify so much now ; he 
doesn’t believe in it so much, and Dick’s annoyed. 
That’s natural, I think, though perhaps it’s a little 
silly of him. However, if you wait, he’ll tell you 
about it himself.” 

44 Why doesn’t Sandro believe in it so much ? ” 

44 Perhaps I ought to have said that he doesn’t 
think the present time a suitable one for press- 
ing it.” 

44 1 see,” said Miss Quisante, sipping her tea. 
May looked at her again and seemed about to 
speak, but in the end she only smiled. She was 
amused at the old lady’s questions, impelled to 
speak plainly to her, and restrained only by the 
sense that any admission she might seem to make 
10 Hi 


QUISANTE 

would be used to the full against her husband by 
his faithful and liberal aunt. 

“ He says he has good reasons, and Dick Benyon 
says they’re bad ones,” she ended by explaining, 
though it was not much of an explanation after all. 

Miss Quisante had the curiosity to await Dick 
Benyon ’s coming, and, in spite of his evident ex- 
pectation of a tete-a-tete , not to go immediately on 
his arrival. She was struck with the air of mingled 
affection and compassion with which he greeted 
his healthy, handsome, smiling young hostess. 
Moreover he was himself apologetic, as though 
suffering from a touch of remorse. He began to 
talk trifles, but May brought him to the point. 

“ I read the speech after I got your letter,” she 
said. “ I’m sorry you don’t like it, but Alexander 
must consider the practical aspect of the matter. 
You won’t do your cause any good by urging it 
out of season.” 

“In season and out of season; that’s the only 
way.” 

“You might be an Irish member,” said May, 
smiling. 

Dick was too much in earnest to be diverted to 
mirth. The presence of Miss Quisante still seemed 
to make him a little uncomfortable, but the old 
lady did not move. May gave her no hint, and he 
was too full of his subject to hold his tongue. 

“ I want you to speak to him about it,” he 
went on. 

“ To urge him to do what he thinks a mistake ? ” 
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LEAD US NOT 


Dick grew a little hot. “ To urge him not to go 
back on the cause and on — on his friends, and 
almost to laugh at them for — ” He paused and 
looked at May; she was smiling steadily. He did 
not end quite as bluntly as he had meant. 44 I 
think that he has, unconsciously no doubt, allowed 
personal considerations to influence him.” 

A short sudden chuckle came from Aunt Maria ; 
she rose to her feet and crossed the room to May. 

44 If he’s going to abuse Sandro, I mustn’t stay,” 
she said. 44 I couldn’t bear to lose any of my illu- 
sions, my dear.” She kissed May and added, 
44 You might tell him to come and see me, though. 
I should like to hear what he’s got in his head 
now. Good-bye, Lord Richard. Don’t you fret 
about your Crusade. Sandro’ll take it up again 
when it’s convenient.” She chuckled again at the 
puzzled stare which accompanied Dick’s shake of 
the hand. 

44 A very kind old woman, but with a rather 
malicious tongue,” said May. She walked to the 
hearth and stood there, facing her visitor. 44 Now, 
Dick, what is it ? ” she asked. 

44 The Dean’s tremendously hurt about it; he 
doesn’t say much, but he feels it deeply.” 

44 I’m very sorry. What are the personal con- 
siderations ? ” 

44 You know Henstead ? ” It was the borough 
for which Quisante sat. 44 There’s an old Wesley- 
an colony there ; several of them are very rich and 
employ a lot of labour and so on. They’ve always 
143 


QUISANTE 

voted for us. And they’ve found a lot of money. 
They found a lot when Quisante got in before.” 

“ Yes ? ” Her voice displayed interest but noth- 
ing more. Dick grew rather red and hurried on 
with his story. 

“Well, one of them, old Foster the maltster, 
came to your husband and — and told him they 
didn’t like the Crusade and that it wouldn’t do.” 
He paused, glanced at May for an instant, and 
ended, “ The seat’s not safe, you know, and — and 
it wants money to fight it.” 

A silence of some few minutes followed. Dick 
fidgeted with his hat, while May looked out of the 
window on to the river. 

“ Why do you come and tell this to me ? ” she 
asked presently. “ Supposing it was all true, what 
could I do?” 

Dick’s resentment got the better of him ; he an- 
swered hotly, “ Well, you might tell him that it 
was playing it pretty low down on us.” 

“ Have you told him that ? ” 

“ Yes, I have, or I shouldn’t have come to you. 
I don’t mean I used just those words, but I made 
my meaning clear enough.” 

“ And what did he say ? ” 

“ He said he didn’t see it in the light I did.” 

A faint smile came on the face of Mr. Quisante’s 
wife. 

“ But you could make him see it,” urged Dick. 
May smiled at him for a brief moment and then 
looked out to the river again. 

144 


LEAD US NOT 


“It’ll be deuced awkward for him if they get 
hold of his back speeches,” said Dick with gloomy 
satisfaction. 

“ Oh, everybody’s back speeches are what you 
call deuced awkward.” A moment later she went 
on, “ What does it all come to, after all ? We 
must take things as they are ; we mustn’t be 
quixotic, we mustn’t quarrel with our bread-and- 
butter.” 

Dick looked at her with evident surprise, even 
with dismay. 

“ You think it all right ? ” he asked. 

“ It’s not for me to say. Am I to sit in judg- 
ment on my husband? Anyhow people do just 
the same thing every day. You know that as well 
as I do, Dick.” Just on the last words her voice 
grew softer ; he might have caught a hint of en- 
treaty, had not his mind been fixed on his own 
wrongs and the betrayal of his favourite cause. 
“ I’m assuming that what you say is true,” she 
added, more coldly again. 

When Dick left her, it was to go home to his 
wife and tell her, and Mrs. Gellatly whom he found 
with her, that he did not understand what had 
come over May Gaston — May Quisante, he cor- 
rected himself. Not understanding, he proved 
naturally quite unable to explain. Lady Richard 
was more equal to the occasion. 

“That man’s simply got hold of her,” she said. 
“ She’ll think black’s white if he says it is. Still 
she must see that he’s treating you shamefully.” 

145 


QUISANTE 

“ She didn’t seem to see it,” moaned Dick mourn- 
fully. Then he laughed ratherly bitterly and add- 
ed, “I tell you what, though. I think that old 
aunt of his has taken his measure pretty well.” 

The innate nobility which underlay Lady Rich- 
ard’s nature showed up splendidly at this moment ; 
she sympathised heartily with Dick, and forbore to 
remind him of what she had said from the beginning, 
contenting herself with remarking that for her part 
she never had considered and did not now consider 
Mr. Quisante even particularly clever. 

“ He’s as clever as the deuce,” said Dick. That 
conviction, at least, he need not surrender. 

“ I suppose,” ventured Mrs. Gellatly, “ that’s how 
he convinces Lady May that he’s always right.” 

Dick looked at her with a touch of covert con- 
tempt; clever people could convince the intellect, 
but there were instincts of honour, of loyalty, and 
of fidelity which no arguments should be able to 
blunt or to turn. Here was the thing which, 
vaguely felt, had so puzzled him in regard to May 
Quisante ; he had not doubted that she would see 
the thing as he had seen it — as Quisante had pro- 
fessed himself unable to see it. 

That evening Quisante brought home to dinner 
the gentleman whom Dick Benyon called old Foster 
the maltster, and w T ho had been Mayor of Henstead 
three several times. He was a tall, stout, white- 
haired old man with a shrewd kindly face, dressed 
all in broadcloth, showing an expanse of white shirt- 
front decorated with a big black stud and a very 
146 


LEAD US NOT 


small black wisp of a tie. His conversation indi- 
cated now and then that he gave thought to the 
other world, always that he knew the ways of this. 
May liked him in spite of the rather ponderous defer- 
ence he showed to her ; with Quisant^, on the other 
hand, he was familiar, seeming to say that he could 
tell the younger man a thing or two ; Quisante’s 
manner did nothing to contradict this implied as- 
sumption. 

44 What we want, sir,” said Foster, “ is to have 
you in the Government. Once you’re there, you’ll 
sit for Henstead till you die or go to the House of 
Lords. Nobody’ll be able to touch you. But this 
time’s critical, very critical. They’ll have a strong 
candidate, and they’ll do all they know to keep you 
out. It’s not a time for offending anybody.” He 
turned to May. 44 I hope your ladyship will let us 
see you very often in the town? ” he said. 

44 When the election begins, I shall come down 
with my husband and stay all the time.” 

44 That’s right ; you’ll be worth a hundred votes.” 
He threw himself back in his chair. 44 Under 
God,” he said, 44 we ought to be safe. Your speech 
had an excellent effect ; I sent it to Middleton, and 
Dunn, and Japhet Williams, and when I met ’em 
at the Council, they were all most pleasant about 
it. I think you’ve undone all the bad impression.” 

44 1 only said what I thought,” observed Quisante. 

44 Yes, yes, just so ; oh, just so, of course.” His 
tone was not in the least ironical, but a little hur- 
ried, as though, having put the thing in a way that 
147 


QUISANTE 

might sound ambiguous, he hastened to prevent 
any possible misapprehension. May had looked for 
a twinkle in his eye, but his eye was guilty of no 
such frivolity. 

44 I had a letter from Mr. Japhet Williams the 
other day,” said Quisante. 44 He was annoyed at a 
vote I gave in Committee on the Truck Act. You 
know I voted against the Government once, in 
favour of what I thought fairer treatment of the 
men ; not that any real hardship on the employer 
was involved.” 

44 Just so, just so,” said Mr. Foster. 44 That’s the 
worst of Japhet. He doesn’t look at the matter in 
a broad way. But I’ve put that all right, sir. I 
met him on the Cemetery Board, and walked home 
with him, and I said, 4 Look here Japhet, that vote 
of Mr. Quisante’s’ll be worth fifty votes among the 
men.’ 4 1 don’t care for that,’ he said ; 4 I’m against 
interference.’ 4 So am I,’ I told him ; 4 but where’s 
the harm? Mr. Quisante must have his own opin- 
ion here and there — that comes of having a clever 
man — but (I said) the Government had a hundred 
majority there, and Mr. Quisante knew it.’ Well, 
he saw that, and admitted that he’d been wrong to 
make a fuss about it.” 

Quisante nodded grave appreciation. May gave 
a little laugh, and suddenly poured out a glass of 
claret for Mr. Foster; turning, he found her eyes 
on his face, sparkling with amusement. His own 
large features relaxed into a slow smile ; something 
like the twinkle was to be detected now. 

148 


LEAD US NOT 


“ Nothing’s the worse for a bit of putting, is it ? ” 
he said, and drank his wine at a gulp. 

“You’re a diplomatist, Mr. Foster,” said she. 

“Not to the detriment of truth ; I assure you I 
don’t sacrifice that,” he replied, with renewed grav- 
ity and an apparently perfect sincerity. 

May was sorry when he took his leave, partly for 
the temporary loss of a study which amused her, 
more because his departure brought the time for 
telling Quisante of Dick Benyon’s visit. She did 
not want to tell him and anticipated no result, yet 
she felt herself bound to let him know about it. 
To this mind her eighteen months of marriage had 
brought her. In the quite early days, while not 
blind to the way he looked at things when left to 
himself, she had been eager to show him how she 
looked at them, and, with the memory of her tri- 
umphs during their engagement, very sanguine 
that she would be able always to convert him from 
his view to hers, to open his eyes and show him the 
truth as it seemed to her. This hopeful mood she 
had for nearly a year past been gradually abandon- 
ing. She had once asked Morewood whether peo- 
ple must always remain what they were ; now she 
inclined to answer yes to her own question. But 
she could not convince herself so thoroughly as to 
feel absolved from the duty of trying to prove that 
the true answer was no. She must offer her hus- 
band every chance still, she must not acquiesce, she 
must not give up the game yet ; some day she 
might (she smiled at herself here) awake an impulse 
149 


QUISANTE 

or happen on a moment so great as really to influ- 
ence, to change, and to mould him. But she had 
come to hate this duty ; she would rather have left 
things alone ; as a simple matter of inclination, she 
wished that she felt free to sit and smile at Quisante 
as she had at old Foster the maltster. She could 
not ; Foster was not part of her life, near and close 
to her, her chosen husband, the father of her child. 
Unless she clung to her effort, and to her paradox- 
ical much- disappointed hope, her life and the 
thought of what she had done with it would become 
unendurable. Dick and his wife had not quite un- 
derstood what had come over her. 

If Mr. Foster was diplomatic, so was she ; she 
set before her husband neither Dick’s complaints 
nor her own misgivings in their crudity ; she 
started by asking how his change of front would 
affect people and instanced Dick and herself only 
as examples of how the thing might strike certain 
minds. She must feed him with the milk of recti- 
tude, for its strong meat his stomach was hope- 
lessly unready. But he was suspicious, and in- 
sisted on hearing what Dick Benyon had said ; so 
she told him pretty accurately. His answer was a 
long disquisition on the political situation, to which 
she listened with the same faint smile with which 
she had heard Dick himself; at last he roundly 
stigmatised the Crusade as a visionary and im- 
practicable scheme. 

“ I stuck to it as long as I could,” he said, “ but 
you wouldn’t have me risk everything for it ? ” 

150 


LEAD US NOT 


“ Or even anything? ” she asked. 

The question was a spark to him. Gladly leav- 
ing the immediate question, he dilated on all that 
the coming contest meant to him, how victory 
would assure his prospects, how defeat might leave 
him hopelessly out in the cold, how it would be 
absurd to lose all that he was going to accomplish 
for the sake of a hasty promise and a cause that he 
had come to disbelieve in. “ When did you come 
to disbelieve in it? ” was the question in her heart ; 
he saw it in her eyes. 

“ It’s a little hard to have to explain everything 
in private as well as in public,” he complained. 
“ And my head’s fit to split.” 

“ Don’t trouble any more about it; only I 
thought I’d better tell you what Dick said.” She 
came to him as he lay back in his chair and put 
her hand on his brow. He was tired, not only 
looking tired ; his head did ache, she had no doubt ; 
to turn these afflictions to account had always been 
his way ; so long ago as the Imperial League ban- 
quet she remembered it. “ Go to bed,” she said. 
“ I’ll write a few letters first.” 

“ I want you to understand me,” he said. He 
loved her and she had made him uneasy ; her good 
opinion was very necessary to his happiness. 

“ I do understand you,” she said, and persuaded 
him to go upstairs, while she sat down by the fire, 
forgetful apparently of the excuse that she had 
made for lingering. 

Did she repent ? That question came often into 
151 


QUISANTE 

her mind. She well might, for one of the great 
hopes with which she had married was quite gone 
by now. There was no longer any possibility of 
maintaining that the faults were of manner only, 
no longer any reasonable expectation that she 
would be able to banish or materially to diminish 
them. It was for better for worse with a ven- 
geance then. But did she repent? There were 
times when she wept, times when she shuddered, 
times when she scorned, even times when she 
hated. But had she ever so felt as to be confident 
that if Omnipotence had offered to undo the past, 
she would have had the past undone? There had 
perhaps been one such occasion quite early in the 
marriage, and the woe of it had been terrible ; but 
it was followed almost immediately by a “ moment,” 
by an inspired outbreak of his over some case in 
the paper, by a vow to see an injustice remedied, a 
ceaseless, unsparing, unpaid month’s work to that 
end, a triumph over wrong and prejudice in the 
cause of a helpless woman. He had nearly killed 
himself over it, the doctor said, and May had 
watched by his bed, without tears, but with a con- 
viction that if he died she must die also ; because 
it seemed as though he had faced death rather than 
her condemnation. That was not the truth of it, 
of course, but she and he between them had made 
it seem the truth to her. 

And now, with all the meanness of this aban- 
donment of his friends, with all this fawning on 
the moneyed Wesleyans before her eyes, she could 
152 


LEAD US NOT 


not declare that she repented, lest he, waking again 
to greatness, should plunge her again into the 
depths of abasement. But that the same man 
should be great and mean, and should escape ar- 
raignment for his meanness by making play with 
his headache ! She smiled now to remember how 
great the mere faults of manner had once seemed 
to her girlish fastidiousness ; they were small to 
her now ; her teeth were set on edge indeed, but 
by a sharper sourness than lay in them. To the 
faults of manner she had grown to some extent ac- 
customed; she had become an adept in covering 
and excusing them. To-day, in her interview with 
Dick Benyon, she had turned a like art on to the 
other faults. A new thought and a new apprehen- 
sion came into her mind. 

44 If I go on defending him,” she murmured, 
44 shall I end by getting like him and really think 
it all right ? I wonder ! ” For it was difficult not 
to identify herself with her cause, and he was now 
her cause. Who asks a lawyer to disbelieve his 
own client, who asks a citizen to be extreme to 
mark what is done amiss in his country’s quarrel ? 

44 Now if the Dean did chance to do anything 
wrong, Mrs. Baxter simply wouldn’t see that it 
was wrong,” she meditated. 44 Neither would 
Amy Benyon, if Dick did. I see it’s wrong and 
yet defend it. I’m the wrong sort of woman to 
have married Alexander.” 

Yes, from that point of view, undoubtedly. 
But there was another. What would Mrs. Baxter 
153 


QUISANTE 

or Lady Richard have made of him at the times 
when he woke to greatness ? Dick had appreciated 
him then ; Dick’s wife never had ; she saw only 
the worst. Well, it was plain to see. May saw 
it so plain that night that she sat where she was 
till the night was old because, if she went upstairs, 
she might find him there. And she fell to wishing 
that the seat at Henstead was not shaky ; so much 
hung on it, her hopes for him as well as his own 
hopes, her passionate interest in him as well as his 
ambition. Nay, she had a feeling or a fear that 
more still hung on it. Pondering there alone in 
the night, assessing her opinion and reviewing her 
knowledge of him, she told herself that there was 
hardly anything that he would not do sooner than 
lose the seat. So that she dreaded the struggle 
for the strain it might put on him ; strains of that 
sort she knew now that he was not able to bear. 
4 6 Lead us not into temptation,” was the prayer 
which must be on her lips for him ; if that were 
not answered, he was well-nigh past praying for 
altogether. For with temptation came his blind- 
ness, and he no longer saw the thing that tempted 
him for what it was. Oh, and what a fool she had 
been to think that she could make him see ! 

At last she went upstairs, slowly and reluctantly. 
Passing her own door, she mounted again to the 
baby’s nursery, and entered softly. All was peace ; 
both baby and nurse slept. May was smiling as 
she came down the stairs ; she murmured, “ Gas- 
ton ! ” mimicking the satisfied tones of old Aunt 
154 


LEAD US NOT 


Maria’s voice. Then she entered her own room ; 
Quisante’s bed was empty. A sense of great relief 
rose in her, but she went out again and softly 
turned the handle of his dressing-room door. He 
had elected to sleep there, as he often did. The 
light was still high ; a book lay open by him on the 
bed. He was in deep sleep, looking very pale, very 
tired, very peaceful. She stood looking at him for a 
moment ; again she smiled as she stole forward and 
peeped at the book. It was a work on Bimetallism. 
Did he mean to win Henstead with that ? Oh, no ; 
he meant to preach the Majesty of the British Sov- 
ereign, King of coins, good tender from China to 
Peru. She imagined him making some fine rhetoric 
out of it. 

He breathed gently and regularly; for once 
he rested, he really rested from his unresting ef- 
forts, from the cruel race he ran ; he was for once 
free from all the thoughts of his brain, all the de- 
vices of his resourceful, unbaffled, unhesitating 
mind. With a sigh she turned away and lowered 
the light, that in darkness he might sleep more 
easily. In the darkness she stood a minute longer, 
seeing now only the dim outline of his body on the 
bed ; again the smile came, but her lips moved to 
murmur softly, “Lead us not into temptation.” 
And still murmuring the only prayer that might 
serve him, still smiling that it was the only prayer 
she could pray for her chosen husband, she left 
Quisante to his rest. 


155 


CHAPTER X 


PRACTICAL POLITICS 

While Alexander Quisante increased in promise 
and prominence, W eston Marchmont had begun to 
cause some anxiety to his best friends. His pas- 
sion for ultimates grew upon him ; sometimes it 
seemed as though he would put up with nothing 
less. At the same time a personal fastidiousness and 
a social exclusiveness, always to a certain extent 
characteristic of the man, gathered greater dominion 
over him. He was not civil to the people towards 
whom civility would be useful, and he refused to 
shut his eyes to the logical defects or moral short- 
comings in the measures promoted by his party. 
His abilities were still conceded in ample terms, his 
charm still handsomely and sincerely acknowledged. 
But a suspicion gradually got about that he was 
impracticable, that he had a perverse affection for 
unpopular causes, for reasons of approval or disap- 
proval that did not occur to the world at large, for 
having a private point of view of his own, differen- 
tiated from the common view by distinctions as un- 
yielding as to the ordinary eye they were minute. 
The man who begins merely by being uncompro- 
mising as to his own convictions may end in finding 
an actual pleasure in disagreeing with those of 
others. Some such development was, according to 
156 


PRACTICAL POLITICS 


acute observers, taking place in Marchmont ; if the 
tendency became his master, farewell to the high 
career to which he had appeared to be destined. 
Plain men would call him finicking, and practical 
men would think it impossible to work with him. 
No impression is more damning about a man en- 
gaged in public life; the Whips have to put a 
query to his name, and he cannot be trusted to 
confine his revolts to such occasions as those on 
which Mr. Foster of Henstead thought an exhibi- 
tion of independence a venial sin, or in certain cir- 
cumstances a prudent act. 

44 The fact is,” Morewood said to Marchmont 
once, when they had been talking over his various 
positions and opinions, “ if you want to lead ordinary 
people, you must keep on roads that ordinary 
people can travel, roads broad enough for the grande 
armee . You may take them quicker or slower, you 
may lead them downhill or get them to follow you 
uphill, but you must keep to the road. A bye-path 
is all right and charming for yourself, for a tete-a- 
tete , or a small party of friends, but you don’t take 
an army-corps along it.” 

The unusual length and the oratorical character 
of this warning were strong evidence of the painter’s 
feelings. Marchmont nodded a grave and troubled 
assent. 

44 Still if I see the thing one way, I can’t act as if 
I saw it the other.” 

44 You mustn’t see it one way,” said Morewood 
irritably. 44 If you must be the slave of your con- 
IX 157 


QUISANTE 

science, hang it, you needn’t be of your intellect. 
Ask the Dean there.” (The Dean, who had been 
drinking his port in thoughtful peace, started a lit- 
tle.) “ He’ll tell you that belief is largely or alto- 
gether — which is it ? — an affair of the will.” 

The Dean was prudent ; he smiled and finished 
his glass. 

“ If I chose to believe in the Crusade, I could,” 
Morewood went on with a satirical smile. “ Or 
with an adequate effort I could think Jimmy Ben- 
yon brilliant, or Fred Wentworth wise, or Alexan- 
der Quisante honest. That’s it, eh, Mr. Dean ? ” 

“ W ell, the ordinary view may be appreciated, 
even if it’s not entirely embraced,” said the Dean 
diplomatically. “ The points of agreement are 
usually much more important, for practice at all 
events, than those of difference.” 

4 4 In fact — shut one eye and go ahead?” asked 
Marchmont. 

“ Oh, shut ’em both and walk by the sound of 
the feet and the cheering.” 

“ Don’t say more than you mean, Mr. More- 
wood,” the Dean advised mildly. 

“I know what he means,” said Marchmont. 
“And, yes, I rather wish I could do it.” 

Morewood began to instance the great men who 
had done it, including in his list many whom the 
common opinion that he praised would not have 
characterised at all in the same way. At each 
name Marchmont denied either the greatness or 
the pliancy. The Dean could see with what ar- 
158 


PRACTICAL POLITICS 


dour he maintained his position; in spite of the 
unvarying suavity of his manner there was some- 
thing naturally repulsive to him in yielding a hair’s 
breadth in deference to the wishes or the weak- 
nesses of a majority. 

“ Your independence is really half a prejudice,” 
said the Dean at the end. 44 You’re like a man 
who can’t get a cab and misses his appointment 
sooner than ride in a ’bus.” 

44 1 suppose so — and I’m much obliged to you. 
But — well, you can argue against what a man does, 
but what’s the use arguing against what he is ? ” 

44 No; he himself ’s the only man who can do 
that,” said the Dean, but he knew as well as 
Marchmont himself that such an argument would 
never be victorious. The will to change was want- 
ing ; Marchmont might deplore what he lost by 
being what he was, and at times he felt very sore 
about it ; but as a matter of taste he liked himself 
just as he was, even as he liked the few people in 
whom he found some of the same flavour and the 
same bent of mind. 

His character was knit consistently all through; 
whether he dealt with public affairs or ordered his 
own life the same line of conduct was followed. If 
he could not have things as he wanted them or do 
them as he chose, he would not have them or do 
them at all. He was not modifiable. For exam- 
ple, having failed to win May Gaston, he had no 
thought of trying for Fanny, and this not (as Lady 
Richard had thought likely) because he objected to 
159 


QUISANTE 

any sort of connection with Quisante ; that point 
of view did not occur to him ; it was merely be- 
cause Fanny was not May, and May was what he 
had wanted and did want. Fanny he left to the 
gradual, uphill, but probably finally successful, 
wooing of Jimmy Benyon. Even with regard to 
May herself he very nearly achieved consistency. 
His promise to be often at Quisante’s house had 
been flagrantly and conspicuously broken. Qui- 
sante had pressed him often; on the three occa- 
sions on which he had called May had let him see 
how gladly she would welcome him more often. 
He had not gone more often. He was not sulk- 
ing, for his temper was not touched; but he held 
aloof because it was not to his taste to go under 
existing circumstances. He knew that he gave 
pain to her and regretted the pain, but he could 
not go, any more than he could give a vote be- 
cause his good friend Constantine Blair, the Whip, 
was very much put out when he wouldn’t. “ He 
wants a party all to himself,” said Constantine 
angrily. “ And then I’m hanged if he’d vote with 
it!” 

Some of the things here indicated May Quisante 
read about him in the papers, some Quisante 
brought home from the House, some she heard 
from friends or divined for herself ; and her heart 
went out to Marchmont under the cunning lure of 
contrast. The Dissolution drew near now, and 
political conferences, schemes, and manoeuvres 
were the order of the day in Grosvenor Road and 
160 


PRACTICAL POLITICS 


in many other houses which she frequented. Per- 
haps she exaggerated what she disliked, but it 
seemed to her that everybody, her husband of 
course among the first, was carefully considering 
how many of his previous utterances and how much 
of his existing opinions he might conveniently, and 
could plausibly, disclaim and suppress, and on the 
other hand to what extent it might be expedient, 
and would not be too startling, to copy and advo- 
cate utterances and opinions which were in appar- 
ent conflict therewith. This, she was told, was 
practical politics. Hence her impulse of longing 
to renew friendship and intimacy with a man who 
was dubbed unpractical. The change would be 
pleasant, and, if she found something to laugh at, 
she would find something to admire, just as if in 
the practical politicians she found something to 
frown at, she contrived to find also much matter 
for legitimate mirth. She had begun by thinking 
that a gift of humour would make her married life 
harder; she was conscious now that without that 
form of insight it would be utterly intolerable. 

“ I hear you’re behaving very badly,” she said to 
Marchmont, when he came in obedience to her in- 
vitation. “ I was talking to Mr. Blair about you, 
and he had no words strong enough to denounce 
you in.” 

“ Yes, it’s atrocious. I’m thinking for myself,” 
he said with a shrug, as he sat down. 

“ For yourself instead of about yourself! With 

a Dissolution coming too ! ” 

161 


QUISANTE 

“ Oh, I’m safe enough. I’m a martyr without a 
stake.” 

“ Well, really, you’re refreshing. I wish we were 
safe, and hadn’t got to make ourselves safe ; I don’t 
think it’s a very elevating process.” She paused a 
moment and then added, “ I ought to apologise for 
bringing you into such an atmosphere of it. We 
conspire here like Fenians, or Women Suffragists, 
and I know how much you hate it all.” 

“ And you? ” he asked briefly. 

“ Oh, yes, as the clerk hates his desk or a 
girl her practising. The duties of life, you 
know.” 

She had received him in an exuberance of spirits, 
much as though she were the school-girl she spoke 
of and he a pleasant visitor from the outside world. 
When she reproached him for not having come be- 
fore, it was only evidence of her pleasure that he 
had come now ; in the days when he saw her often 
and was always at her call, there had been no such 
joy as this. Yet he had hesitated to add one more 
item to the score of simple perversity, of not want- 
ing when you can have and vice versa ; what she 
said about the atmosphere she lived in showed him 
that his hesitation had been right. 

“ And I know you didn’t want to come,” she 
went on. “You’ve only come out of politeness, no, 
I mean out of kindness.” 

“ There was an old invitation. An old promise 
too ? W asn’t there ? ” 

“ One never withdrawn, the other terribly brok- 
162 


PRACTICAL POLITICS 


en,” she laughed. “ You’ve heard of our difference 
with poor Dick Benyon ? ” 

“Of your husband’s?” May smiled slightly. 
“Yes, I have. Quisante’s quite right now, you 
know; the only pity is that he didn’t see it 
sooner.” 

“ Dick’s not so charitable as you. He suspects 
our sincerity.” 

It was on the tip of his tongue to say again 
“ Your husband’s ? ” but looking at her he found 
her eyes full of fun, and began to laugh himself. 

“I find it absolutely the only way,” May ex- 
plained. “ I can’t draw distinctions. Mrs. Baxter, 
now, says * Our Cathedral ’ but ‘ My drawing-room.’ 
Amy Benyon says ‘Our relations,’ when she means 
hers and ‘ Dick’s relations ’ when she means his. 
I’ve quite given up the attempt to discriminate ; a 
thorough-going identification of husband and wife 
is the only thing. The We matrimonial must be 
as universal as the We editorial.” 

“ The theory is far-reaching, if you apply it to 
qualities.” 

“ Yes, I don’t quite know how far.” 

“Alliance becomes union, and union leads to 
fusion ? ” 

“ And fusion leads where ? ” 

He escaped answering or covered inability to an- 
swer with a shrug. 

“ I’m sorry you don’t please Mr. Blair,” she said. 

“ Really I don’t think I care so very much. I 

used to be ambitious, but — ” 

163 


QUISANTE 

“ Oh, don’t tell me it’s not worth while being 
ambitious. It’s all I’ve got.” 

She had spoken on a hasty unthinking impulse ; 
she grew a little red and laughed rather nervously 
when she found what she had said. His face did 
not change, his voice was quite unmoved, as he 
said, smiling, “ In that case, no doubt, it is worth 
while.” 

She wanted to applaud his excellent manners; 
at the same time they annoyed her rather. She 
had been indiscreet no doubt, but her indiscretion 
might, if he had liked, have led the way to matters 
of interest, to that opening of the heart to some- 
body for which she was pining. His polite care 
not to embarrass her shut the door. 

“I mean just now,” she resumed, “ while our 
seat’s so shaky, you know.” 

“ Ah, yes,” said he half-absently. 

She leant back in her chair and looked at him. 

“ I think,” she said, “ you look as if you did care, 
about Mr. Blair or about something else. I wanted 
to tell you that I don’t agree in the least with the 
criticisms on you.” She leant forward, asking in a 
lower voice, “ Do they hurt you ? ” 

“Not much. A man likes to succeed, but there 
are things I like better.” 

“Yes. Well, there’s nothing we — we — like bet- 
ter, Mr. Marchmont.” 

He rose and stood on the hearth ; her eyes were 
upturned to his in a steady gaze. 

“You were always very frank, weren’t you?” 

164 


PRACTICAL POLITICS 


he asked, looking down and smiling. “Well, 
you’ve known what you say for a long while, 
haven’t you ? ” 

“ Oh, yes, even before — Oh, ever since the very 
beginning, you know. There now! We’ve left 
‘ We’ and got to ‘ I,’ and whenever that happens I 
say something I oughtn’t to. But one must some- 
times. I believe I could serve anybody to the 
death if only I were allowed to speak my whole 
mind about him once a week. But it’s disloyal, I 
suppose.” 

“ Well, I suppose it is.” 

She laughed. “ That’s what Mr. Blair means,” 
she said. “ You must have seen that I wanted you 
to say ‘No, it isn’t.’ Perhaps you would have to 
anybody else. You were always one of the people 
who attributed all the virtues to me. You made 
it so hard for me to be good. I loathed the girl 
you thought I was. One comfort is that as I am 
now — ” Suddenly her eyes met his ; she stopped. 
“We’d better talk about ‘we’ again,” she ended 
with a laugh. 

“ Whom do you talk to ? ” he asked curiously. 

“ About ‘we’? I talk to Miss Quisante — You’ve 
met her ? She’s never tired of talking about ‘ we ’ 
— though she doesn’t like us ; but she doesn’t care 
a bit to talk about me.” 

“ Have a confidante,” he suggested gravely. 

“ Yes — like Tilburina. Who shall I have ? ” 

A run through their acquaintance suggested only 
Mrs. Gellatly, and her May rejected as being too 
165 


QUISANTE 

suitable, too much the traditional confidante. “ I 
should like one who might possibly have something 
to tell me in return, and she never could,” she 
said. 

They were interrupted by the arrival of the man 
of whom they had spoken, Constantine Blair. He 
came with important and, as he clearly considered, 
disquieting news for Quisante. Sir Winterton 
Mildmay, one of the richest landowners near 
Henstead, who had been at loggerheads with his 
party, had made up the quarrel and consented to 
stand in opposition to Quisante. “ I thought the 
sooner your husband knew the better,” said Con- 
stantine with a very grave face. “ It makes a dif- 
ference, you see. We only beat young Fortescue, 
a stranger in the town, by two hundred, and they 
had four hundred the time before.” He paused 
and added, “ Lady Mildmay’s very much liked in 
the town. ” 

“ Come, Blair, I’m sure we shan’t be worse 
off in that respect anyhow,” said Marchmont, 
laughing. 

“Oh, I’ve nothing to do with you, I’ve given 
you up,” cried Blair, twisting his good-humoured 
face into a fierce scowl. “He’s a man with 
convictions, Lady May; he’s no sort of use to 
me.” 

Blair had convictions himself, but he and every- 
body else took them so much for granted that they 
might almost as well not have existed ; they were 
polite convictions too, ready to give place not only 
166 


PRACTICAL POLITICS 


to one another, but even to circumstances, and 
waiting quite patiently their turn to be realised. 
He expected to be met in a like spirit, conceiving 
that the true function of a man’s own opinions is 
to decide which party he shall belong to ; with 
that decision their duty was ended. He possessed 
an extremely cordial manner, dressed perfectly, 
and never forgot anybody. He enjoyed his work 
immensely, quarrelling with nothing in it save that 
it often prevented him from being present at the 
first performances of new plays. May thought 
him pleasant, but did not welcome his appear- 
ance to-day ; he smacked too strongly of those 
politics distinctively practical from which her 
talk with Marchmont had afforded a temporary 
escape. 

“ I know Mildmay,” said Marchmont. “ He’s a 
capital fellow, and, I should think, very popular. 
He’ll give you a bit of a run.” 

“ From what I hear he’ll run us very close 
indeed,” said Blair with an anxious look. “ How- 
ever, I’ve unlimited confidence in your hus- 
band, Lady May. If Mildmay is to be beaten 
Quisante’ll beat him ; if there is a weak spot he’ll 
find it out.” 

May smiled faintly ; what Blair said was so 
true. 

“ Perhaps,” smiled Marchmont, “ you’ll be able 
to ferret out something about him.” 

May turned to him and said with a touch of 
sharpness, “We shall fight fairly anyhow, I hope.” 

167 


QUISANTE 

She saw that she surprised him and went on with 
a laugh, 44 You shouldn’t talk as if we were going 
to set detectives on him and use their information 
for electioneering.” 

44 Well, hardly,” said Constantine Blair. 44 Still, 
mind you, a constituency has a right to know 
that its member is an honourable and equitable 
man as well as a supporter of the principles it 
favours.” 

44 Excellently well put, Blair,” said Marchmont 
languidly. 44 Is it your own ? ” 

44 No ! ” said May, with a sudden laugh. 44 1 be- 
lieve it’s my husband’s.” 

Blair looked a little put out, but his good-humour 
triumphed. 44 I’m not above borrowing from my 
betters,” he said. 44 Quisante did say something 
of the sort to me, but how in the world did you 
know? Has he said it to you ? ” 

44 Oh, no; I knew by — oh, just by the subtle 
sympathy that exists between husband and wife, 
Mr. Blair.” She laughed again and glanced at 
Marchmont. 44 Sir Winterton must look out for 
the detectives, mustn’t he ? ” she ended. 

Marchmont saw, though Blair did not, that she 
jested uneasily and reaped no pleasure, although she 
reaped amusement, from her clever recognition of 
her husband’s style. She had spoken in much the 
same tone about the difference with Dick Benyon 
and the suspicions which Dick cast on 44 our sincer- 
ity.” He came near to perceiving and understand- 
ing what was in her mind — what had been there as 
168 


PRACTICAL POLITICS 


she watched Quisante sleeping. The first sugges- 
tion of ferreting out something had come from him, 
purely in the way of a cynical jeer, just because no- 
body would ever suspect him of seriously contem- 
plating or taking part in such a thing. Well, May 
Quisante did not apparently feel quite so confident 
about her husband. 

Blair bustled off, with a parting mysterious hint 
that they must lose no time in preparing for the 
fray — it might begin any week now — and May’s 
face relaxed into a more genuine smile. 

“ He does enjoy it so,” she explained. But 
Marchmont was not thinking of Blair. He asked 
her abruptly, 

44 You’ll go to Henstead and help him, I sup- 
pose ? ” 

44 Of course. I shall be with him right through. 
He’ll want all the help I can give him. It’s every- 
thing to him to win this time.” 

44 Yes, I know.” Her voice had become troubled 
again ; she was very anxious for her husband’s suc- 
cess ; but was she anxious about something else 
too? 44 If I can help you, let me,” he said as he 
rose to go. 

She gave him her hand and looked in his face. 

44 I’m afraid that most likely I shouldn’t be able 
to ask you,” she said gravely. The answer, as she 
gave it, meant so much to him, and even seemed 
to admit so much, that he wondered at once at her 
insight into his thoughts and at her frankness in 
facing what she found there. For did she not in 
169 


QUISANTE 

truth mean that she might want help most on 
some occasion when the loyalty he had himself ap- 
proved would forbid her to reveal her distress to 
him or to seek his succour ? He ventured, after an 
instant’s hesitation, on one word. 

“ After all,” he said, “ you can’t trundle the 
world’s wheelbarrow in white kid gloves ; at least 
you soil them.” 

“ Then why trundle it ? ” she asked. “ At any 
rate you needn’t say that sort of thing. Leave that 
to Mr. Blair.” 

Not only was the time when everybody had to be 
bestirring themselves approaching rapidly, but the 
appearance of Sir Winterton Mildmay in the lists 
quickened the Quisantes’ departure for the scene 
of action. Rooms were taken at the Bull in Hen- 
stead, an election agent appointed, resources calcu- 
lated — this involved a visit to Aunt Maria — and 
matters got into fighting trim. During this period 
May had again full cause to thank her power of 
humour; it almost scattered the gloomy and (as 
she told herself) fanciful apprehensions which had 
gathered round, and allowed her to study with 
amusement her husband’s preparations. He talked 
Very freely to her always about his political views, 
and now he consulted her on the very important 
question of his Election Address. He reminded 
her of a man packing his portmanteau for a trip 
and not quite knowing what he would want, 
whether (for example) shooting boots would come 
in useful, or warm underclothing be essential. 

170 


PRACTICAL POLITICS 


Space was limited, needs difficult to foresee, cli- 
mate very uncertain. Some things were obviously 
necessary, such as the cry on which the Government 
was going to the country ; others were sure to be 
serviceable ; in went 44 something for Labour ” (she 
gathered the phrase from Quisante’s rough notes) ; 
odd corners held little pet articles of the owner’s 
things which he had found unexpectedly useful on 
a previous journey, or which might seem especially 
adapted to the part of the world he was going to 
visit. On the local requirements Mr. Foster the 
maltster was a very Baedeker. With constant 
effort on Quisante’s part, with almost unfailing 
amusement on his wife’s, the portmanteau got itself 
filled. 

44 Are you sure there’s nothing else, Alexander ? ” 
she asked. 

44 1 think I’ve got everything that’s of real ser- 
vice,” said he. 44 1 don’t want to overload it.” 

Of course not ; excess luggage may be very ex- 
pensive. May was smiling as she handed back the 
Address. 

44 It’s extraordinarily clever,” she remarked. 

44 You are extraordinarily clever, you know.” 

44 There’s nothing in it that isn’t pretty obvious,” t 
said he, though he was well pleased. 

44 Oh, to you, yes, obvious to you; that’s just 
it,” she said. 

But amongst all that was in the portmanteau 
there was nothing that could be construed into a 
friendly word for the Crusade ; and were not the 
171 


QUISANTE 

anxious minds of the Henstead Wesleyans meant 
to read a disclaimer of that great movement in a 
reference to “ the laudable and growing activity of 
all religious denominations, each within the sphere 
of its own action ” ? Quisante had put in “ legiti- 
mate ” before “ sphere,” but crossed it out again ; 
the hint was plain enough without, and a super- 
fluous word is a word too much. “ Sphere,” implies 
limitations ; the Crusade had negatived them. This 
significant passage in the Address was fresh in 
May’s mind when, a day or two later, her husband 
came in, fretful and out of humour. He flung a 
note down on the table, saying in a puzzled tone, 

“ I can’t think what’s come over Dick Benyon. 
You know my fight’ll be over before his is half-way 
through, and I wrote offering to go and make a 
couple of speeches for him. He writes back to say 
that under existing circumstances he thinks it’ll be 
better for him not to trouble me. Bead his note ; 
it’s very stiff and distant.” 

“ Can you wonder ? ” was what rose to her lips. 
She did not put the question. The odd thing was 
that most undoubtedly he could wonder and did 
wonder, that he did not understand why Dick 
should be aggrieved nor, probably, why, even 
though he chose to be aggrieved, he should there- 
fore decline assistance of unquestionable value. 

“ Well, there’ll be a lot of people glad to have 
me,” said Quisante in resentful peevishness. “ And 
I dare say, if I have a big win, he’ll change his 
mind. I shall be worth having then.” 

172 


PRACTICAL POLITICS 


“ I don’t think that would make any difference 
to Dick,” she said. 

She spoke lightly, her tone was void of all offence, 
but Quisante left the room, frowning and vexed. 
She had seemed to rebuke him and to accuse him 
of not seeing or not understanding something that 
was plain to her. He had become very sensitive 
on this point. Left to himself, he had been a self- 
contented man, quite clear about what he meant to 
do, troubling very little about what he was, quite 
confident that he could reason from his own mind 
to the mind of his acquaintances with absolute 
safety. When he fell in love with May Gaston, 
however, part of her attraction for him had lain in 
his sense of a difference between them, of her grasp 
on things and on aspects of things which eluded 
him ; in this mood he had been prepared to worship, 
to learn, to amend. These things for a little while 
he had done or attempted, and had been met by 
zealous efforts to the same end on her part. His 
great moments had been frequent then, and May 
had felt that the risky work she had undertaken 
might prosper and at last be crowned with success. 
As for some months back this idea of hers had 
been dying, even so Quisante’s humble mood died. 
Now his suspicious vanity saw blame of what he 
was, or even contempt of him, in every word by 
which she might seem to invite him to become 
anything different. Though she had declared her- 
self on his side by the most vital action of her 
life, he imputed to her a leaning towards treach- 
12 173 


QUISANTE 

ery ; her heart was more with his critics than with 
him. 

Yet he did not become indifferent to her praise 
or her blame, but rather grew morbidly sensitive 
and exacting, intolerant of questioning and disliking 
even a smile. He loved her, depended on her, and 
valued her opinion; but she became in a certain 
sense, if not an enemy, yet a person to be concil- 
iated, to be hoodwinked, to be tricked into a fa- 
vourable view. Hence there crept into his bearing 
towards her just that laboured insincerity which she 
had never ceased to blame in his attitude towards 
the world at large. He showed her the truth about 
himself now only as it were by accident, only when 
he failed to perceive that the truth would not be to 
her liking. But this was often, and every time it 
happened it seemed to him as well as to her at once 
to widen the gulf between them and to move 
further away any artificial means of crossing it. 
Thus the new sense of self-dissatisfaction and self- 
distrust which had grown upon him centred round 
his wife and seemed to owe its origin to her. 

On her side there came a sort of settled, resigned, 
not altogether unhumorous, despair. She saw that 
she had over-rated her power alike over him and 
over herself. She could not change what she hated 
in him, and she could not cease to hate it. She 
could neither make the normal level higher nor yet 
bear patiently with the normal lower level; the 
great moments would not become perpetual and 
the small moments grew more irritating and more 
174 


PRACTICAL POLITICS 


humiliating. But the great moments recurred 
from time to time and never lost their charm. 
Thus she oscillated between the moods produced 
by an intense intellectual admiration on the one 
hand and an intense antipathy of the feelings on 
the other ; and in this uncomfortable balancing she 
had the prospect of spending her life. Well, Aunt 
Maria had lived in it for years, and Aunt Maria 
could not be called an unhappy woman. If only 
Quisante would not do anything too outrageous, 
she felt that she would be able to endure. Since 
she could not change, she must be content to com- 
promise, to ignore — if only he would not drive her 
from that refuge too. 

“ I suppose she sees what the man is by now,” 
said Lady Richard to Morewood, whom she had 
been trying to entice into sympathising with her 
over the scandalous treatment of the Crusade. 

“ My dear Lady Richard, she always saw what 
he is much better than you do, even better than I 
do. But it’s one thing to see what a man is and 
quite another to see what effect his being it will 
have on yourself from time to time.” 

“ What he’s done about Dick and the Dean is 
so characteristic.” 

“ For example,” Morewood pursued, “ you know 
what a bore is, but at one time he kills you, at an- 
other he faintly amuses you. You know what a 
Dean is ” (he raised his voice so as to let the Dean, 
who was reading in the window, overhear) ; “ at 
one time the abuse exasperates you, at another such 
175 


QUISANTE 

splendid indifference to the progress of thought 
catches your fancy. No doubt Lady May expe- 
riences the same varieties of feeling towards her 
worthy husband.” 

“Well, I’ve done with him,” said little Lady 
Richard. Morewood laughed. 

“ The rest of us haven’t,” he said, “ and I don’t 
think we ever shall till the fellow dies somehow 
effectively.” 

“What a blessing for poor May!” cried Lady 
Richard impulsively. 

Morewood was a long while answering ; even in 
the end what he said could not be called an an- 
swer. But he annoyed Lady Richard by shaking 
his finger at her and observing, 

“ Ah, there you raise a very interesting ques- 
tion.” 

“ Very,” agreed the Dean from the window seat. 

“ I didn’t know you were listening,” said Lady 
Richard, wheeling round. 

“ I always listen about Mr. Quisante.” 

“ Exactly ! ” exclaimed Morewood. “ I told you 
so ! ” But Lady Richard did not even pretend to 
understand his exultation or what he meant. What- 
ever he had happened to mean about poor May, 
the Dean was not Alexander Quisante’s wife. 


176 


CHAPTER XI 


SEVENTY-SEVEN AND SUSY SINNETT 

The course of events gave to the Henstead elec- 
tion an importance which seemed rather adventi- 
tious to people not Henstead-born. It occurred 
among the earliest ; the cry was on its trial. Qui- 
sante was a prominent champion, his opponent 
commanded great influence, and the seat had al- 
ways been what Constantine Blair used to call 
“ pivotal,” and less diplomatic tongues “ wobbly. ” 
Such materials for conspicuousness were sure to 
lose nothing in the hands of Quisante. The con- 
sciousness that he fought a larger than merely local 
fight, on a platform broader than parochial, under 
more eyes than gazed at him from the floor of the 
Corn-Exchange, was the spur he needed to urge 
him to supreme effort and rouse him to moments 
of inspiration. Add to this the feeling that his 
own career was at its crisis. Even Fanny Gaston, 
who rather unwillingly accompanied her sister to 
the Bull, was in twenty-four hours caught by the 
spirit of combat and acknowledged that Quisante 
was a fine leader of a battle, however much he left 
to be desired as a brother-in-law. She flung herself 
into the fight with unstinted zeal, and was re- 
warded by Quisante s conviction that he had at 
last entirely overcome her dislike of him. 

177 


QUISANTE 

“ He’s really splendid in his own way,” she wrote 
to Jimmy Benyon — by now they had come to cor- 
responding occasionally — “and I think that you any- 
how — I don’t ask Dick, who’s got a fight of his 
own — might come and give him some help. People 
know how much you did for him, and it looks 
rather odd that you should neither of you be here.” 
So Jimmy, after a struggle, packed up, and gave and 
received a reciprocal shock of surprise when he got 
into the same railway carriage as the Dean and 
Mrs. Baxter. 

“ What, are you going too ? ” cried Jimmy. 

Mrs. Baxter explained that they were not going 
to join Mr. Quisante ; indeed they were bound for 
the opposite camp, being on their way to stay with 
the Mildmays. The Dean added that his presence 
had no political significance ; the Mildmays were 
old friends, and the visit quite unconnected with 
the election. “ Although,” the Dean added, “ I 
shall find it interesting to watch the fight.” His 
manner indicated that his sympathies were divided. 
Jimmy hastened to explain his presence. 

“ I’m only going because of May and Fanny. I 
don’t care a straw about Quisante,” he said, “ al- 
though I’m loyal to the party, of course.” 

“I’m not a party man,” observed the Dean. 
How should he be, when both parties contemptu- 
ously showed his dear Crusade the door ? 

“ I want Sir Winterton to win,” said Mrs. Baxter 
with mild firmness. 

“ Oh, I say ! ” murmured Jimmy, who was very 
178 


SEVENTY-SEVEN AND SUSY SINNETT 

ready to be made to feel uncomfortable. “ Come 
now, why, Mrs. Baxter ? ” 

Mrs. Baxter shook her head, and went on knitting 
the stocking which on journeys took the place of 
the wonted petticoat. 

“ My wife’s taken a prejudice against Mr. Qui- 
sante,” the Dean explained apologetically. 

“ A prejudice ! ” said Mrs. Baxter with a patient 
withering smile ; she implied that her husband 
would be calling religion and the virtues prejudices 
next. 

“ There’s nothing particularly wrong with him,” 
Jimmy protested weakly. 

“ There’s nothing particularly right with him, 
Lord James. He’s just like that coachman of the 
Girdlestones’ ; he never told the truth and never 
cleaned his harness, but, bless you, there was al- 
ways a good reason for it. What became of the 
man, Dan ? ” 

“ I don’t know, my dear.” 

“ I remember. They had to get rid of him, and 
the Canon got him made night-watchman at the 
Institute. However, as I say, I called him Mr. 
Reasons, and that’s what I call Alexander Qui- 
sante. Poor girl ! ” The last words referred, by a 
somewhat abrupt transition, to Quisante’s wife. 

The Dean smiled rather uneasily at Jimmy Ben- 
yon ; Mrs. Baxter detected the smile, but was not 
disturbed. She shook her head again, saying, 

“ Sir Winterton you can trust, but if I were he 
I’d keep a sharp eye on all you Quisante people.” 

179 


QUISANTE 

“ I say, hang it all ! ” moaned Jimmy Benyon. 
But his protest could not soften the old lady’s con- 
vinced hostility. “ You ask his aunt,” she ended 
vindictively, and Jimmy was too timid to suggest 
that enquiries in such a quarter were not the usual 
way of forming a judgment on rising statesmen. 

Moreover he had no opportunity, for Miss Qui- 
sante did not come to Henstead ; her explanation 
showed the mixture of malice and devotion which 
was her usual attitude towards Sandro. 

“ I’d give my ears to come,” she had told May, 
“ to see the fun and hear Sandro. But I’m old and 
ugly and scrubby, and Sandro won’t want me. I’m 
not a swell like you and your sister. I should do 
him harm, not good. He’d be ashamed of me — oh, 
that’d only amuse me. But I’d best not come. 
Write to me, my dear, and send me all his speeches.” 

“ I wish you’d come. I want you to talk to,” 
May said. 

“ Talk to your sister ! ” jeered Aunt Maria ; it 
was nothing less than a jeer, for she knew very well 
that May could not and would not talk to Fanny. 

One thing the Quisante people (as Mrs. Baxter 
called them) found out before they had been long 
in Henstead, and this was the important and deli- 
cate nature of anything and everything that touched 
or affected Mr. Japhet Williams. Something of 
this had been foreshadowed by Mr. Foster’s account 
of his friend, but the reality went far beyond. 
Japhet was a small fretful-faced man ; he was rich, 
liberal, and kind, but he plumed himself on a scru- 
180 


SEVENTY-SEVEN AND SUSY SINNETT 


pulous conscience and was the slave of a trifle-ridden 
mind. As a member of a party, then, he was hard 
to work with, harder even than Weston March- 
mont, of whom he seemed sometimes to May to be 
a reduced and travestied copy. Not a speech could 
be made, not a bill issued, but Japhet Williams 
flew round to the Committee Room with an objec- 
tion to urge and a hole to pick. There he would 
find large, stout, shrewd old Foster, installed in an 
arm-chair and ready with native diplomacy, or 
Quisante himself, earning Mrs. Baxter’s nickname 
of “ Mr. Reasons ” by the suave volubility of his 
explanations. May laughed at such scenes half-a- 
dozen times in the first week of her stay at Hen- 
stead. 

“ Is he so very important to us ? ” she asked of 
Foster. 

He answered her in a whisper behind a fat 
hand, 

“ His house is only a couple of miles from Sir 
Winterton’s, and Lady Mildmay’s been civil. He 
employs a matter of two hundred men up at the 
mills yonder.” 

“ The position’s very critical, isn’t it, then ? ” 

“ So your good husband seems to think,” said 
Foster, jerking his thumb towards where Quisante 
leant over Japhet’s shoulder, almost caressing him, 
and ingeniously justifying the statistics of an elec- 
tioneering placard. May’s eyes followed the direc- 
tion of the jerk. She sighed. 

“ Yes, it’s a waste of Mr. Quisante’s time, but we 
181 


QUISANTE 

can’t help that,” Foster sighed responsively. It 
was not, however, of Quisante’s time that his wife 
had been thinking. 

Japhet rose. Quisante took his hand, shook it, 
and held it. 

“ Now you’re satisfied, really satisfied, Mr. Will- 
iams ? ” he asked. “ I give you my word that what 
I’ve said is absolutely accurate.” 

“ What that placard says, sir? ” 

“ Yes, yes, certainly — what the placard says. It 
doesn’t give the details and explanations, of course, 
but the results are accurately stated.” 

“ I’m much relieved to hear it, much relieved,” 
said Japhet. 

He left them; Foster sat down again, smiling. 
May had come to drive her husband to a meet- 
ing and waited his leisure. He came across to 
Foster, holding the suspected placard in his 
hand. 

“ Smoothed him down this time, sir? ” asked Fos- 
ter cheerily. 

“Yes,” answered Quisante, passing his hand over 
his smooth hair. “ I think, Mr. Foster, we won’t 
have any more of this Number 77. Make a note 
of that, will you ? ” 

“No more of 77,” Foster noted on a piece of 
paper. 

“ It’s not one of the most effective,” said Qui- 
sante thoughtfully. 

“ Sails a little near the wind, don’t it ? ” asked 
Foster with a wink. 


182 


SEVENTY-SEVEN AND SUSY SINNETT 


“ Brief summaries of intricate subjects are almost 
inevitably open to misunderstanding,” observed 
Quisante. 

“ Just so, just so,” Foster hurried to say, his eyes 
grown quite grave again. May remembered Mr. 
Constantine Blair’s plagiarism of her husband’s 
style; had he been there, he must have appropri- 
ated this last example also. “ I shall end by be- 
coming very fond of Japhet Williams,” she said as 
she got into the carriage. Quisante glanced at her 
and did not ask her why. 

Meanwhile, however, the other side had got hold 
of No. 77, and Smiley, the agent, a very clever fel- 
low, wired up to the Temple for young Terence 
McPhair, who had an acquaintance with the sub- 
ject. Young Terence, who possessed a ready 
tongue and no briefs to use it on, made fine play 
with No. 77 ; accusations of misrepresentation, ig- 
norant he hoped, fraudulent he feared, flew about 
thick as snowflakes. The next morning Japhet 
was round at the Committee Room by ten o’clock. 
Foster was there, and a boy came up to the Bull 
with a message asking if Mr. Quisante could make 
it convenient to step round. It was a bad morning 
with Quisante ; his head ached, his heart throbbed, 
and his stomach was sadly out of gear ; he had 
taken up a report of young Terence’s speech, and 
read it in gloomy silence while the others break- 
fasted. There was to be a great meeting that 
night, and they had hoped that he would reserve 
what strength he had for it. He heard the mes- 


QUISANTE 

sage, rose without a word, and went down to the 
Committee Room. 

“ What’ll he do ? ” asked Jimmy Benyon. “ They 
gave us some nasty knocks last night.” 

“ He can prove that the placard has been with- 
drawn, at least that no more are to be ordered,” 
said Fanny Gaston. “ It wasn’t his fault ; he’s not 
bound to defend it.” 

Quisante came home to a late lunch ; he was still 
ill, but his depression had vanished ; he ate, drank, 
and talked, his spirit rising alove the woes of his 
body. 

“What have you done this morning?” Fanny 
asked. 

“ Held a meeting in the dinner-hour, had ten in- 
terviews, and the usual palaver with Japhet.” 

“ How are Mr. Williams’ feelings ? ” asked May. 

“He’s all right now,” said Quisante, smiling. 
Then he added, “ Oh, and we’ve wired to town for 
two hundred and fifty more of 77.” 

Then May knew what was going to happen. 
Quisante was roused. The placard was untrue, at 
least misleading, and he knew it was; he might 
have retreated before young Terence and sheltered 
himself by an inglorious disclaimer. That, as Aunt 
Maria said, was not Sandro’s way. No. 77 came 
down by the afternoon train, a corps of bill-posters 
was let loose, and as they drove to the evening 
meeting the town was red with it. Withdrawn, 
disclaimed, apologised for? It was insisted on, 
relied on, made a trump card of, flung full in 
184 


SEVENTY-SEVEN AND SUSY SINNETT 


young Terence’s audacious face. May sat by her 
husband in that strange mixed mood that he 
roused in her, half pride, half humiliation; scorn- 
ing him because he would not bow before the 
truth, exulting in the audacity, the dash, and the 
daring of him, at the spirit that caught victory out 
of danger and turned mistake into an occasion of 
triumph. For triumph it was that night. Who 
could doubt his sincerity, who question the in- 
jured honour that rang like a trumpet through his 
words ? And who could throw any further slur on 
No. 77, thus splendidly championed, vindicated, 
and almost sanctified? Never yet in Henstead 
had they heard him so inspired ; to May herself it 
seemed the finest thing he had yet done ; and even 
young Terence, when he read it, felt glad that he 
had left Henstead by the morning train. 

As Quisantd sank into his chair amid a tumult 
of applause, Foster winked across the platform at 
May ; but little Japhet Williams was clapping his 
hands as madly as any man among them. Who 
could not congratulate him, who could not praise 
him, who could not feel that he was a man to be 
proud of and a man to serve ? Yet most undoubt- 
edly No. 77 was untrue or at least misleading, and 
Alexander Quisante knew it. Undoubtedly he 
had said “No more of it.” And now he had 
pinned it as his colours to the mast. May found 
herself looking at him with as fresh an interest and 
as great a fear as in the first weeks of their marriage. 
Would she in her heart have had him honest over 
185 


QUISANTE 

No. 77, honest and inglorious ? Or was she coming 
to think as he did, and to ask little concerning hon- 
esty? What would Weston Marchmont think of 
the affair? Or, short of that, how Morewood 
would smile and the Dean shake his head ! 

The No. 77 episode was very typical of that time, 
and most typical of Alexander Quisante’s conduct, 
of Sandro’s way. His best and his worst, his high- 
est and his lowest, were called out ; at one moment 
he wheedled an ignorant fool with flattery, at an- 
other he roused keen honest men to fine enthusi- 
asm ; now he seemed to have no thought that was 
not selfish and mean, now imagination rapt him to 
a glow of heart- felt patriotism. The good and the 
bad both stood him in stead, and hope reigned in 
his camp. But all hung in the balance, for Sir 
Winterton was tall and handsome, bluff and 
hearty, a good landlord, a good sportsman, a good 
man, a neighbour to the town and a friend to half 
of it. And the great cry did not seem like proving 
a great success. 

“ It’s up-hill work against Sir Winterton,” said 
Japhet Williams, rubbing his thin little hands to- 
gether. 

A troubled look spread over the broad face of 
that provincial diplomatist, Mr. Foster the malt- 
ster; he knew where the danger lay. They would 
come to Quisante’s meetings, applaud him, admire 
him, be proud of his efforts to please them; but 
when the day came would they not think (and 
would not their wives remind them) that Sir Win- 
186 


SEVENTY-SEVEN AND SUSY SINNETT 


terton was a neighbour and a friend and that Lady 
Mildmay was kind and sweet? Then, having 
shouted for Quisante, would they not in the 
peaceful obscurity of the ballot put their cross 
opposite Mildmay ’s name ? 

“I’m not easy about it, sir, that I’m not,” said 
Foster, wiping his broad red brow. 

Quisante was not easy either, as his lined face 
and his high-strung manner showed ; he was half- 
killing himself and he was not easy. So much 
hung on it ; before all England he had backed 
himself to win, and in the strain of his excitement 
it seemed to him that the stake he laid was his 
whole reputation. Was all that to go, and to go 
on no great issue, but just because Sir Winterton 
was bluff and cheery and Lady Mildmay kind and 
sweet ? Another thing he knew about himself; if 
he lost this time, he must be out in the cold at 
least for a long time ; he could not endure another 
contest, even if the offer of a candidature came to 
him, even though Aunt Maria found the funds. 
Everything was on this fling of the dice then ; and 
it seemed to him almost iniquitous that he should 
lose because Sir Winterton was bluff and cheery 
and his wife kind and sweet. His face was hard 
and cunning as he leant across towards old Foster 
and said in a low voice, with a sneering smile, 

“ I suppose there’s nothing against this admirable 
gentleman ? ” 

Old Foster started a little, recollecting perhaps 
that fine passage in the speech which opened the 
187 


QUISANTE 

campaign, the passage which defined the broad 
public lines of the contest and loftily disclaimed 
any personal attack or personal animosity. But 
the next moment he smiled in answer, smiled 
thoughtfully, as he tapped his teeth with the 
handle of his pen-knife. Quisante sat puffing at a 
cigar and looking straight at him with observant 
searching eyes. 

“ Anything against him, eh ? ” asked Foster in a 
ruminative tone. 

‘ 6 They’ve been ready enough to ask where I 
come from, and how I live, and so on.” 

“ They know all that about Sir Winterton, you 
see, sir.” 

“Yes, confound them.” The keen eyes were 
still on Foster ; the fat old man shifted his po- 
sition a little and ceased to meet their regard. 
“We don’t want to be beaten, you know,” said 
Quisante. 

A silence of some minutes followed. Quisante 
rose and strolled off to a table, where he began to 
sort papers; Foster sat where he was, frowning a 
little, with his mouth pursed up. He stole a 
glance at Quisante’s back, a curious enquiring 
glance. 

“ I know nothing about the rights of it one way 
or the other,” he said at last. ‘ ‘ But some of the 
men up at the mills and in my place still remem- 
ber Tom Sinnett’s affair. Only the other night, 
as Sir Winterton drove by, one of them shouted 
out, ‘Where’s Susy Sinnett?’” 

188 


SEVENTY-SEVEN AND SUSY SINNETT 


Quisante went on sorting papers and did not 
turn round. 

“ Who the deuce is Susy Sinnett ? ” he asked in- 
differently, with a laugh. 

44 It was about five years ago — before Sir Win- 
terton’s split with the Liberals. Tom was a keeper 
in Sir Winterton’s employ, and Sir Winterton 
charged him with netting game and sending it to 
London on his own account.” Foster’s narrative 
ceased and he looked again at his candidate’s back. 
The papers rustled and the cigar smoke mounted 
to the ceiling. 44 Well ? ” said Quisante. 

44 Tom was found guilty at Sessions ; but in the 
dock he declared Sir Winterton had trumped up 
the charge to shut his mouth.” 

“ What about ? ” 

44 Well, because he’d found Sir Winterton dan- 
gling after Susy, and threatened to break his head 
if he found him there again.” He paused, Quisante 
made no comment. 44 Tom got nine months, and 
when he came out all the family emigrated to 
Manitoba.” 

After a short pause, filled by the arrangement 
of papers, Quisante observed, 44 That must have 
cost money. He’d saved out of what he got for 
the game, eh ? ” 

“ It was supposed Sir Winterton found the 
money,” said Foster, 44 but nothing was known. 
Sir Winterton refused to make any statement. 
He said his friends would know what to think, and 
he didn’t care a damn (that was his word) about 
13 189 


QUISANTE 

anybody else. Still some weren’t satisfied. But 
the talk died away, except here and there among 
the men who’d been Tom’s pals. I daresay Tom 
gave ’em a rabbit now and again in exchange for a 
pot of beer, and they missed him.” Mr. Foster 
ended with a little chuckle. 

“ I think Sir Winterton might have been a little 
more explicit,” Quisante remarked. “ There’s 
some excuse for thinking an explanation not un- 
necessary. What became of the girl? Did she 
go to Manitoba ? ” 

“ I believe she did in the end, but she’d married 
a man from Dunn’s works and left the town three 
months after her father was sent to prison.” 

Quisante came back to the hearth and stood 
looking down on old Foster. 

“ Rather a queer story,” he said. “But I meant, 
was there anything against him of a public nature, 
in his local record, anything of that sort, you know.” 

“I know nothing of that kind,” said Foster, 
raising his eyes and meeting his leader’s. He 
looked rather puzzled, as if he were still not quite 
sure what Quisante’s question had meant, in spite 
of Quisante’s explanation of it. “ I’d almost for- 
gotten this, but Japhet Williams mentioned it the 
other day. You know Japhet by now. He said 
he thought he ought to ask Sir Winterton to make 
a statement.” 

A sudden gleam shot through Quisante’s eyes. 

“ Mr. Williams’ active conscience at work again?” 
he asked with a sneering laugh. 

190 


SEVENTY-SEVEN AND SUSY SINNETT 


“ That’s it,” said Foster, still looking stolidly at 
his chief. “ But I know Sir Winterton; he’d only 
say what he did before.” 

Quisante turned, flung the end of his cigar into 
the grate, and turned back to Foster, saying, 

“ Mr. Williams must do as he thinks right ; but 
of course I can’t have any hand in a matter of that 
kind.” 

44 Just so, just so,” murmured Foster as hurriedly 
but even more vaguely than usual. His chief was 
puzzling him still. 

44 1 can’t have anything at all to do with it,” Qui- 
sante repeated emphatically. Foster did not quite 
know whence he gathered the impression, but he 
was left with the feeling that, if he should chance 
ever to be asked what had passed between them 
on the subject, he must remember this sentence at 
least, whatever else of the conversation he recol- 
lected or forgot. 

44 Of course you can’t, sir. I only mentioned it 
in passing,” said he. 

44 And you’d better tell Japhet Williams so, if he 
mentions the matter.” The slightest pause fol- 
lowed. 44 Or,” added Quisante, grinding his heel 
into the hearth rug as though in absence of mind, 
44 if it happens to crop up in talk between you.” 

Whether the matter did crop up as suggested or 
not is one of those points of secret history which 
it seems useless to try to discover. But an incident 
which occurred the next evening showed that Japhet 
Williams’ mind and conscience had, either of their 
191 


QUISANTE 

own motion or under some outside direction, been 
concerning themselves with the question of Tom 
Sinnett and his daughter Susy. There was a full 
and enthusiastic meeting of Sir Winterton’s sup- 
porters. In spite of Quisante’s victory over No. 77, 
they were in good heart and fine fighting fettle; 
Sir Winterton was good-tempered and sanguine; 
there was enough opposition to give the affair go, 
not enough to make itself troublesome. But at the 
end, after a few of the usual questions and the usual 
verbal triumphs of the candidate, a small man rose 
from the middle of the hall. He was greeted by 
hoots, with a few cheers mingling. The Chairman 
begged silence for their worthy fellow-townsman, 
Councillor Japhet Williams. 

Japhet was perfectly self-possessed; he had been, 
he said, as a rule a supporter of the opposite party, 
but he kept his mind open and was free to admit 
that he had been considerably impressed by some 
of the arguments which had fallen from Sir Win- 
terton Mildmay that evening. The meeting ap- 
plauded, and Sir Winterton nodded and smiled. 
There was one matter, however, which he felt it his 
duty to mention. Now that Sir Winterton Mild- 
may (the full name came with punctilious courtesy 
every time) was appealing to a wider circle than 
that of his personal friends and acquaintances, now 
that he was seeking the confidence of his fellow- 
townsmen in general (A voice “ He’s got it too,’ 1 
and cheers), would Sir Winterton Mildmay con- 
sider the desirability of reconsidering the attitude 
192 


SEVENTY-SEVEN AND SUSY SINNETT 


he had taken up some time ago, and consider the 
desirability (Japhet’s speech was not very artis- 
tically phrased but he loved the long words) of 
making a fuller public statement with reference 
to what he (Mr. Japhet Williams) would term the 
Sinnett affair? And with this Japhet sat down, 
having caused what the reporters very properly 
described as a “ Sensation ” — and an infinite deal 
of hooting and groaning to boot. But there were 
cheers also from the back of the room, where a 
body of roughly dressed sturdy fellows sat suck- 
ing at black clay pipes ; these were men from the 
various works, from Dunn’s and from Japhet’s 
own. 

As Japhet proceeded Sir Winterton’s handsome 
face had grown ruddier and ruddier ; when Japhet 
finished, he sat still through the hubbub, but his 
hand twitched and he clutched the elbow of his 
chair tightly. The platform collectively looked 
uncomfortable. The chairman — he was Green, the 
linen-draper in High Street — glanced uneasily at 
Sir Winterton and then whispered in his ear. Sir 
Winterton threw a short remark at him, the chair- 
man shrank back with the appearance of having 
been snubbed. Sir Winterton rose slowly to his 
feet, still very red in the face, still controlling him- 
self to a calmness of gesture and voice. But all he 
said in answer to that most respected and influen- 
tial townsman, Mr. Japhet Williams, was, 

“ No, I won’t.” 

And down he plumped into his chair again. 

193 


QUISANTE 

Not a word of courtesy, not a word of respect for 
Japhet’s motives, not even an appeal for trust, not 
even a simple pledge of his word ! A curt and con- 
temptuous “ No, I won’t,” was all that Sir Winter- 
ton’s feelings, or Sir Winterton’s sensitiveness, or 
his temper, or his obstinacy, allowed him to utter. 
Sir Winterton was a great man, no doubt, but at 
election times the People also enjoys a transient 
sense of greatness and of power. The cheers were 
less hearty now, the groans more numerous; the 
audience felt that, in its own person and in the per- 
son of Japhet Williams, it was being treated with 
disrespect ; already one or two asked, “ If he’s got 
a fair and square answer, why don’t he give it ? ” 
The superfine sense of honour, which feels itself 
wounded by being asked for a denial and soiled by 
condescending to give one, is of a texture too deli- 
cate for common appreciation. “ No, I won’t,” said 
Sir Winterton, red in the face, and the meeting felt 
snubbed. Why did he snub them ? The meeting 
began to feel suspicious. There were no more ques- 
tions ; the proceedings were hurried through ; Sir 
Winterton drove off, pompous in his anger, red 
from his hurt feelings, stiff in his obstinacy. The 
cheer that followed him had not its former hearti- 
ness. 

“I only did my duty,” said Japhet to a group 
who surrounded him. 

“ That’s right, Mr. Williams,” he was answered. 
“ W e know you. Don’t you let yourself be silenced, 
sir.” For everybody now remembered the Sinnett 
194 


SEVENTY-SEVEN AND SUSY SINNETT 


affair, which had seemed so forgotten, everybody 
had a detail to tell concerning it, his own views to 
set forth, or those of some shrewd friend to repeat. 
That night the taverns in the town were full of it, 
and at many a supper table the story was told over 
again. As for Japhet, he dropped in at Mr. Foster’s 
and told what he had done, complaining bitterly of 
how Sir Winterton had treated him, declaring that 
he had been prepared to listen to any explanation, 
almost to take Sir Winterton’s simple word, but 
that he was not to be bullied in a matter in which 
his own conscience and the rights of the constitu- 
ency were plainly and deeply involved. Mr. Foster 
said as little as he could. 

“ It w T on’t do for me to take any part,” he re- 
marked. “ I’m too closely connected with Mr. 
Quisante, and I know he wouldn’t wish to enter 
into such a matter.” 

“I’m not acting as a party man,” said Japhet 
Williams, “ and this isn’t a party matter. But a 
plain answer to a plain question isn’t much to ask, 
and I mean to ask for it till I get it, or know the 
reason why I can’t.” 

Dim rumours of a “ row ” at Sir Winterton’s meet- 
ing reached the Bull that night, brought by Jimmy 
Benyon, who had been at a minor meeting across 
the railway bridge among the railway men. Some- 
body had brought up an old scandal, and the can- 
didate’s answer had not given satisfaction. The 
ladies showed no curiosity; Quisante, very tired, 
lay on the sofa doing nothing, neither reading, nor 


QUISANTE 

talking, nor sleeping. His eyes were fixed on the 
ceiling, he seemed hardly to hear what Jimmy said, 
and he also asked no questions. So Jimmy, dis- 
missing the matter from his mind, went to bed, 
leaving Quisante still lying there, with wide-open 
eyes. 

There he lay a long while alone ; once or twice 
he frowned, once or twice he smiled. Was he 
thinking over the opportunity that offered, and the 
instrument that presented itself? What chances 
might lie in Sir Winter ton’s dogged honour and 
tender sensitiveness on the one hand, and on the 
other in that conscience of little Japhet’s, stronger 
now in its alliance with hurt pride and outraged self- 
importance ! And nobody could say that Quisante 
himself had had any part in it ; he had spoken to 
nobody except Foster, and he had told Foster most 
plainly that he would have nothing to do with such 
a matter. There he lay, making his case, the case 
he could tell to all the world, the case Foster also 
could tell, the case that both Foster and he could 
and would tell, if need be, to all the world, to all 
the world — and to May Quisante. 

“ Sandro always has a case,” said Aunt Maria. 
He had a case about what Japhet termed the 
Sinnett affair, just as he had had a case, and a very 
strong one as it had proved, about placard No. 77. 
When at last he dragged his weary overdone body 
to bed, his lips were set tight and his eyes were 
eager. It was the look that meant something in 
his mind, good or bad, but anyhow a resolution, 
196 


SEVENTY-SEVEN AND SUSY SINNETT 


and the prospect of work to be done. Had May 
seen him then, she would have known the look, 
and hoped and feared. But she was sleeping, and 
none asked Quisante what was in his mind that 
night. 


197 


CHAPTER XII 


A HIGHLY CORRECT ATTITUDE 

Up to the present time all had gone most smoothly 
at Moors End, the Mildmays’ old manor-house, 
eight miles from Henstead, and Lady Mildmay had 
confided many quiet self-congratulations to Mrs. 
Baxter’s ear. For it had seemed possible that the 
election might prove a cause of perturbation. Lady 
Mildmay was still in love with her handsome well- 
preserved husband, and had every confidence in 
him, but to a chosen friend she would sometimes 
admit that he was “ difficult ” ; she called him not 
proud and obstinate, but sensitive and a little 
touchy ; she hinted that he could not bear unpleas- 
ant looks, and yet was not very ready to make con- 
cessions to friendship. No doubt he needed some 
management, and Lady Mildmay, like many wives, 
found one of her chief functions to consist in acting 
as a buffer between her husband and a world which 
did not always approach him with enough gentle- 
ness and consideration. Hence her joy at the pros 
perous passage of a critical time, at the enthusiasm 
of their supporters, and at the gratification and 
urbanity of Sir Winterton. Satisfaction begat char- 
ity, and Lady Mildmay had laughingly dismissed 
some portentous hints which Mrs. Baxter let fall 
198 


A HIGHLY CORRECT ATTITUDE 


about the certain character and the probable tactics 
of Mr. Quisante. 

“ His wife looks so nice, he can’t be very bad,” 
said kind Lady Mildmay, using an argument of 
most uncritical charity. 

Although the Dean, if pressed, must have ranked 
himself among his host’s political opponents, he was 
so little of a party man and had so many points of 
sympathy with Sir Winterton (especially on Church 
matters) that he very contentedly witnessed the con- 
test from Moors End and no longer troubled him- 
self to conceal his hopes of a Moors End triumph. 
Nevertheless he was judiciously reticent about Qui- 
sante, generously eulogistic of May. Sir Winterton 
looked forward to making the acquaintance of both, 
but thought that the occasion had better be post- 
poned till they had ceased to be opponents. 

“ But I hope you and your wife’ll go over as 
often as you like,” he said to the Dean very cordially. 
But the Dean and Mrs. Baxter did not go, perhaps 
preferring not to divide their sympathies, perhaps 
fearing that they might seem like spies and be 
suspected of carrying back information to the rival 
camp. “ I dare say you’re wise,” said Sir Winter- 
ton, rather relieved ; he had made the suggestion 
because it was the handsome thing to do, but was 
not eager that it should be accepted. To do the 
handsome thing and to meet with pleasant looks 
were the two requisites most essential to Sir Win- 
terton’s happiness; given these he was at his best 
and his best was a fine specimen of the class to 
199 


QUISANTE 

which he belonged. There was, however, a weak 
side to these two desires of his, as the history of the 
Sinnett affair to some extent indicated. 

The first shock to Sir Winterton’s good temper 
had been the matter of No. 77 ; until then he had 
been lavish of the usual polite compliments to his 
opponent’s personal character. After No. 77’s prod- 
igal reappearance and Quisante’s rhetorical effort 
in defence of it these assurances were no more on 
his lips, and for a time he bore himself with strict 
reserve when Quisante was mentioned. He had 
been right in the dispute, and he had been beaten ; 
silence was the utmost that could be expected of 
his tolerance or his self-control ; his refusal to speak 
on the subject showed his opinion well enough, and 
he must not be blamed too severely if he listened 
without protest and perhaps with pleasure to Mrs. 
Baxter’s pungent criticisms. Of course she had been 
reminded of something — of the strictures which a 
certain Provincial Editor had passed on the house- 
hold arrangements of a certain Minor Canon; a 
libel action had ensued, and the jury had been be- 
guiled into finding for the defendant on a bare lit- 
eral construction of words which to anybody ac- 
quainted with local circumstances bore another and 
much blacker meaning. This Mrs. Baxter called a 
pettifogging trick, and she pursued her parallel till 
the same terms were obviously indicated as appro- 
priate to Quisante’s conduct. 

“ My dear ! ” said the Dean in mild protest; but 
Sir Winterton laughed as though he had enjoyed 
200 


A HIGHLY CORRECT ATTITUDE 


the story. He was at once favoured with the fur- 
ther parallel of the Girdlestones’ coachman and, as 
the conversation drifted to May, of the Noncon- 
formist Minister’s daughter and the Circus Pro- 
prietor. All Mrs. Baxter’s armoury of reminiscence 
was heartily at his service. 

But No. 77 did not after all touch Sir Winterton 
very closely. His temper had begun to recover 
and he had nearly forgiven Quisante when suddenly 
Japhet Williams produced a far more severe and 
deadly shock. His action was a bomb, and a bomb 
thrown from a hand which Moors End had been 
fain to think was or might be friendly. Was not 
Japhet a neighbour, only two miles off along the 
Henstead Road, and did not Lady Mildmay and 
Mrs. Williams, religious differences notwithstand- 
ing, work together every year on the Committee of 
the Cottage Gardens and Window-Boxes Show? 
Had not Japhet himself been understood to be re- 
considering his political opinions ? There was even 
more. The Sinnett affair was the one subject ut- 
terly forbidden, most rigidly tabooed, at Moors 
End. All Sir Winterton’s relatives, friends, ac- 
quaintances, and dependents knew that well. Sir 
Winterton’s honour and temper had never been so 
wounded as over that affair. By Japhet ’s hand it 
was dragged into light again ; the odious thing be- 
came once more the gossip of Henstead, once more 
a disgusting topic which it was impossible wholly to 
ignore at Moors End. This was plain enough since, 
on the morning after Japhet’s question had been 
20H 


QU1SANTE 


put, Lady Mildmay was discussing the position 
with Mrs. Baxter in the morning-room, while the 
Dean and Sir Winterton walked round and round 
the lawn in gloomy conversation punctuated by 
gloomier silences. 

What the actual history was Lady Mildmay ’s 
narrative showed pretty accurately. Sir Winter- 
ton’s predominant desires, to do the handsome 
thing and to meet with pleasant looks, evidently 
had played a large part. Lady Mildmay blushed a 
little and smiled as she began by observing that Sir 
Winterton had distinguished the girl by some kind 
notice ; he liked her, he always liked nice-spoken 
nice-looking girls ; for her sake and her mother’s (a 
very decent woman), he had forgiven Tom many 
irregularities. At last his patience gave out and 
Tom was prosecuted ; when arrested, Tom had tried 
blackmail ; Sir Winterton was not to be bullied, 
and Tom’s speech from the dock was no more than 
an outburst of defeated malice. 

Then came on the scene Sir Winterton’s kind 
heart and his predominant desires. He had made 
the girl a present to facilitate her marriage and had 
got the husband work away from the town, where 
no gossip would have reached. This seemed 
enough, and so Doctor Tillman, an old and wise 
friend, urged. But as the time of Tom’s release 
approached and his wife made preparations for re- 
ceiving him in a cottage just on the edge of Sir 
Winterton’s estate, it became odious to think of 
the black looks and scowls which would embitter 
202 


A HIGHLY CORRECT ATTITUDE 


every ride in that direction. “ I want to forget the 
whole thing, to get rid of it, to blot it all out,” said 
Sir Winterton fretfully. Prison had induced rea- 
son in Tom Sinnett ; he made his submission and 
accepted the liberal help which carried him and his 
wife, his daughter and her husband, to a new life 
across the seas. Then Sir Winterton had peace in 
his heart and abroad; he had behaved most hand- 
somely, and there were no scowling faces to remind 
him of the hateful episode. He had met the gossip 
boldly and defiantly ; it had died away and had 
seemed utterly forgotten and extinct; the low 
grumbles and not very seemly jokes which still lin- 
gered among the men at the various works in Hen- 
stead, where Tom had been a persona grata , never 
reached the ears of the great folk at Moors End ; it 
is perhaps only at election times that such things 
become audible in such quarters. 

The poor lady ended with a careworn smile; she 
had suffered much during the episode, and perhaps 
the more because her faith in her husband had 
never wavered. 

“ I did so hope it was all over,” she said. 

“ That’s a good deal to hope about anything,” 
observed Mrs. Baxter rather grimly. 

“It does annoy Winterton so terribly. I’m 
afraid it’ll quite upset him.” 

Mrs. Baxter had her own opinion about Sir Win- 
terton ; amid much that was favourable, she had 
no doubt that he was far too ready to get on the 
high horse. 


QUISANTE 

‘‘Well, my dear,” she said, “Sir Winterton’ll 
have to do what many people have ; he must swal- 
low his pride and tell the truth about it.” 

“I don’t think he will,” sighed Lady Mildmay, 
looking out at her husband’s tall imposing figure, 
and marking the angry energy with which he was 
impressing his views on the Dean. 

In this case at least Mrs. Baxter was right. Sir 
Winterton had got on the very highest of horses ; 
he had mounted at the meeting, flinging back his 
“No, I won’t,” as he sprang to the saddle ; he was 
firmly seated ; having got up, he declared that he 
could not think of coming down. There, for good 
or evil, he sat. The Dean looked vexed and puz- 
zled. 

“ This Mr. Williams is an honest man, I sup- 
pose ? ” he asked. 

“ Oh, honest as the day, too honest. But he’s 
an infernal little ass,” said Sir Winterton. “ Some- 
body’s got hold of him and is using him, or he’s 
heard some gossip and caught it up. I won’t say 
a word.” And he went on to ask if he were to de- 
grade himself by making explanations and excuses 
for his personal conduct to all the rowdies and loaf- 
ers of Henstead. “ If I have to do that to get in, 
why, I’ll stay out, and be hanged to them.” His 
face suggested that his language would have been 
still more vigorous but for a respect due to the 
Dean’s cloth. 

Later in the day they all had a turn at him, his 
wife pleading tenderly, Mrs. Baxter exhorting 
204 


A HIGHLY CORRECT ATTITUDE 


trenchantly (he came nearer to being told he was a 
fool than had ever happened to him before), the 
Dean suggesting possible diplomacies, Dr. Tillman, 
whom they sent for as a reinforcement, declaring 
that a few simple words, authorised by Sir Winter- 
ton, would put the whole matter right. He was 
obstinate ; he had taken up his position and meant 
to stand by it ; his conscience was clear and his 
honour safe in his own keeping; he would not 
speak himself and explicitly forbade any statement 
to be made on his behalf. Surely some power 
fought for Alexander Quisante in giving him an 
opponent of this temper ! 

44 If any statement is to be made in reference to 
the matter,” said Sir Winterton, rather red in the 
face again by now, 44 I confess to thinking that it 
would come best from Mr. Quisante. In fact I 
think that a few words would come very gracefully 
from Mr. Quisante.” 

Lady Mildmay caught at the hope. “ If it was 
suggested to him, I’m sure ” 

44 Suggested !” cried Sir Winterton. 44 Is it like- 
ly I should suggest it or permit any of my friends 
to do so ? I was merely speculating on what 
might not unnaturally suggest itself to a gentle- 
man in Mr. Quisante’s position.” 

Mrs. Baxter’s smile was very eloquent of her 
opinion on this particular point. The Dean frowned 
perplexedly. 

44 There are exigencies to be considered,” he 

stammered. 44 The views of his supporters ” 

14 205 


QUISANTE 

“ In a matter like this ? ” asked Sir Winterton in 
a tone of lofty surprise. The Dean felt that he 
had rather committed himself, and did not venture 
to remind his sensitive host that after all Quisante 
had no knowledge of the truth or falsehood of the 
story, and could say nothing beyond that he had 
none. Mrs. Baxter, however, spoke plainly. 

“ Let me tell you,” she said, “that if you expect 
anything of the sort from Alexander Quisante, 
you’ll find yourself mistaken.” 

“ I don’t know that I agree with you there, my 
dear,” said the Dean, entering his usual caveat . “I 
think very likely Mr. Quisante would be willing to 
do the proper thing if it were pointed out to him.” 

“ Pointed out! ” murmured Sir Winterton, rais- 
ing his brows. Did gentlemen need to have the 
proper thing pointed out to them ? Did they not 
see it for themselves and do it ? Nay, one might 
look for more than the mere naked proper thing ; 
from a gentleman the handsome thing was to be 
expected, and that of his own motion. There 
could, in Sir Winterton’s view, be no doubt of 
what was in this case the handsome thing. 

Unhappily, there is no subject on which greater 
divergence of opinion exists than that of the proper 
thing to be done under given circumstances. Here 
was Sir Winterton holding one view ; Japhet 
Williams held another, and it is to be feared that a 
section of the inhabitants of Henstead adopted a 
third. Sir Winterton’s cry was honour, Japhet’s 
was duty; the inhabitants would have differed 
206 


A HIGHLY CORRECT ATTITUDE 


rather even among themselves as to how to de- 
scribe their motive ; party spirit, curiosity, the zest 
of a personal question, interest in a promising quar- 
rel, mere mischief, all had a hand in producing the 
applause which greeted Japhet when he rose the 
next evening and with absolute imperturbability 
repeated the same question as nearly as possible in 
the same words. Sir Winterton’s answer was not 
in the same words, but entirely to the same effect. 
44 I’ve answered that question once, and I won’t 
answer it again,” he said. Then came the tumult, 
and after that a dull unenthusiastic ending, and the 
drive off through a grinning crowd, which enjoyed 
Sir Winterton’s fury and added to it by a few 
hateful cries of 44 Where’s Susy Sinnett ? ” From 
the outskirts of the town till his own gates were 
reached Sir Winterton did not speak to his wife. 
Then he turned to her and said very courteously 
but most decisively, 

44 Marion dear, you will oblige me by not accom- 
panying me to any more meetings at present and 
by not visiting the town just now. I don’t choose 
to expose you to any more such scenes. I can’t 
teach these fellows to respect a lady’s presence, but 
I can protect my wife by ensuring her absence.” 
He looked very chivalrous and very handsome as 
he made this little speech. Rut his wife’s heart 
sank; such an attitude could mean nothing but 
defeat. 

44 Can’t you help us ? ” she implored of the Dean, 
when she had got him alone and told him of this 
207 


QUISANTE 

new development of her husband’s pride or tem- 
per. It was evident that Japhet Williams meant, 
as he had said, to go on putting his plain question 
till he got a plain answer, and so long as he put his 
question, Lady Mildmay was not to be present. 
How soon would Henstead understand that the 
gentleman who sought to be its member openly 
declared that he did not consider it a fit place for 
his wife to enter ? 

“ Something must really be done,” said the Dean 
nervously. “ At all hazards.” They both knew 
that 44 at all hazards ” meant in spite of the pro- 
hibition and in face of the wrath of Sir Winter- 
ton. 

Indeed this impulsive gentleman, seated on his 
high horse, was in urgent need of being saved from 
himself. Hitherto Japhet’s importunity and the 
attacks of less conscientious opponents had had the 
natural effect of rousing his supporters to greater 
enthusiasm and greater zeal. When his fresh step 
began to be understood, when Lady Mildmay came 
with him no more, and it dawned upon Henstead 
that Sir Winterton would not bring her, the very 
supporters felt themselves offended. Were a few 
ribald cries and the folly of a wrong-headed old 
Japhet Williams to outweigh all their loyalty and 
devotion ? Was the town to be judged by its row- 
dies? They could not but remember that Lady 
May Quisantd sat smiling through the hottest 
meetings, and one evening had at the last moment 
saved her husband’s platform from being stormed 
208 


A HIGHLY CORRECT ATTITUDE 


by sitting, composed and immovable, in the very 
middle of it till the rioters came to a stand a foot 
from her, and then retreated cowed before her 
laughter. That was the sort of thing Henstead 
liked; to be told that it was unworthy of Lady 
Mildmay’s presence was not what it liked. A strong 
deputation came out to Sir Winterton ; he replied 
from his high horse ; the deputation averred that 
they could not answer for the consequences ; Sir 
Winterton said he did not care a rush about the 
consequences ; the deputation ventured timidly to 
hint that an excessive care to shield Lady Mild- 
may’s ears from any mention of the Sinnett affair 
might be misunderstood ; Sir Winterton said that 
he had nothing to do with that ; his first duty was 
to his wife, his second to himself. The deputation 
retired downcast and annoyed. 

“ If you’re going to do anything, Dan, you’d bet- 
ter do it at once,” said Mrs. Baxter. 

The Dean, resolved to risk Sir Winterton’s anger 
in Sir Winterton’s interest, did something ; he 
wrote covertly to Jimmy Benyon at the Bull, beg- 
ging him to be riding on the Henstead road at ten 
o’clock the next morning ; the Dean would take a 
walk and the pair would meet, as it was to seem, 
accidentally; nothing had been said to Sir Winter- 
ton, nothing was to be said at present to Mr. Qui- 
sante. The Dean was, in fact, most carefully un- 
official, and in no small fright besides ; yet he was 
also curious to know how this new phase of the 
fight was regarded at the Quisante headquarters. 

209 


QUISANTE 

Jimmy came punctually, greeted the Dean most 
heartily, and listened to all that he said. The Dean 
could not quite make out his mood ; he seemed un- 
comfortable and vexed, but he was not embarrassed, 
and was able to state what the Dean took to be the 
Quisante position with so much clearness that the 
Dean could not help wondering whether he had re- 
ceived instructions. 

“ Quisante’s line has been to take absolutely no 
notice of the whole thing,” said Jimmy. “ He 
knows nothing about it, and has had nothing to do 
with its being brought forward; he’s never men- 
tioned it, and he won’t. But on the other hand he 
doesn’t feel called upon to fight Mildmay’s battle, 
or to offend his own supporters by defending a 
man who won’t defend himself. As for this busi- 
ness about Lady Mildmay, if Mildmay likes to 
make such an ass of himself he must take the con- 
sequences.” 

The Dean felt that the Quisante case even put 
thus bluntly by Jimmy was very strong ; Quisante’s 
deft tongue and skilful brain could make it appear 
irresistible. Strategically retiring from the ground 
of strict justice, he made an appeal to the feelings. 

“ Surely neither Mr. Quisante himself nor any of 
you would wish to win through such an occurrence 
as this ? That would be no satisfaction to you.” 

“ Of course we’d rather win without it,” said 
Jimmy irritably. “ It’s not our fault. Go to 
Japhet Williams, or, best of all, persuade Mild- 
may not to be a fool. Why won’t he answer ? ” 

210 


A HIGHLY CORRECT ATTITUDE 


“ Have you had any talk with Quisante about 
it? ” 

“ Very little. He thinks pretty much what I’ve 
said.” 

“ Or with Lady May ? ” asked the Dean with a 
direct glance. 

“ She’s never mentioned it to me.” 

“ The whole affair is deplorable.” 

“ I don’t see what we can do.” Jimmy’s tone 
was rather defiant. 

The Dean fell into thought and, as the result 
thereof, made a proposition ; it was very much 
that suggestion to Quisante on which Sir Winter- 
ton had frowned so scornfully. 

“ If,” said he, “ I could persuade Sir Winterton 
to give Mr. Quisante a private assurance that the 
scandal is entirely baseless, would Mr. Quisante 
state publicly that he was convinced of its falsity 
and did not wish it to influence the electors in any 
way? ” 

“ Perhaps he would,” said Jimmy. 

“ I think it would be only the proper thing for 
him to do,” said the Dean rather warmly. 

“ 1 don’t know about that. Why can’t Mild- 
may say it for himself? But 111 ask Quisante, if 
you like.” 

The Dean was only too conscious of the weak- 
ness of his cause ; he became humble again in 
thanking Jimmy for this small promise. “And 
Mr. Quisante’ll be glad to have done it, I know, 
whatever the issue of the fight may be,” he ended. 

211 


QUISANTE 

The remark received for answer no more than a 
smile from Jimmy. Jimmy was not sure that 
among the stress of emotions filling Quisante’s 
heart in case of defeat there would be room for 
any consoling consciousness of moral rectitude. 
Perhaps Jimmy himself would not care much 
about such a solatium. He wanted to win and he 
wanted Quisante to win; such was the effect of 
being much with Quisante ; and in this matter at 
least, so far as Jimmy’s knowledge went, his 
champion had acted with perfect correctness. At 
other times Jimmy might have been, like Sir Win- 
terton, apt to exact something a little beyond 
correctness, but now the spirit of the fight was on 
him. 

The Dean returned with the rather scanty re- 
sults of his mission, and after luncheon took his 
courage in both hands and told Sir Winterton 
what he had done. But for his years and his sta- 
tion, Sir Winterton would, at the first blush, have 
called him impertinent ; the Dean divined the sup- 
pressed epithet and defended himself with skill, 
but, alas, not without verging on the confines of 
truth. To say that he had happened to meet 
Jimmy Benyon was to give less than its due credit 
to his own ingenuity; to say that Jimmy and he 
had agreed on the proper thing was rather to in- 
terpret than to record Jimmy’s brief and not very 
sanguine utterances. However the Dean’s motive 
was very good, and before the meal ended Sir 
Winterton forgave him, while still sternly nega- 


A HIGHLY CORRECT ATTITUDE 


tiving the course which his diplomacy suggested. 
In fact Sir Winterton was very hard to manage ; 
the Dean understood the Quisante position better 
and better ; Mrs. Baxter gave up her efforts ; she 
had an almost exaggerated belief in the inutility of 
braying fools in a mortar; she was content to show 
them the mortar, and if that were not enough to 
leave them alone. Only the wife persevered, for 
she thought neither of herself nor of what was 
right, but only of what might serve her husband. 
To the meetings he would not speak, to Quisante 
he might be got to speak ; she would not let him 
alone while there was a chance of it. And at last 
she prevailed, not by convincing his reason (which 
indeed was little involved in the matter either 
way), not by taming his pride, and not by point- 
ing to his interest, but by the old illogical, per- 
haps in the strictest view immoral, appeal — “ For 
my sake, because I ask you for your love of me ! ” 
For his love of her Sir Winterton consented to 
write a private note to Alexander Quisante, stating 
for his own satisfaction and for his opponent’s in- 
formation the outline of the true facts of the Sin- 
nett affair. Sir Winterton disliked his task very 
much, but having to do it, he did it as he did 
everything, as a gentleman would, frankly, simply, 
cordially, with an obvious trust in Quisante’s chiv- 
alry, good faith, and reluctance to fight with any 
weapons that were not stainless. 

“Now we’ve put it straight,” said the Dean 
gleefully. “ He’s bound to mention your note 
213 


QUISANTE 

and to accept your account, and if he accepts it, 
his supporters can’t help themselves, they must do 
the same.” Sir Winterton agreed that, distasteful 
as this quasi-appeal to his opponent had been, it 
could not fail to have the beneficial results which 
the Dean forecast. There was more cheerfulness 
at Moors End that evening than had been seen 
since Japhet Williams rose from the body of the 
hall, a small but determined Accusing Angel. 

It is not so easy to put straight what has once 
gone crooked, nor so safe to undertake to advise 
other folks, however much the task may by habit 
seem to lose half its seriousness. In his heart the 
Dean was thinking that he had “ cornered ” Qui- 
sante, and Sir Winterton was hoping that he had 
combined the advantages of pliancy with the privi- 
lege of pride. The note that Quisante wrote in 
answer did nothing to disturb this comfortable 
state of feeling — unless indeed any danger were 
foreshadowed in the last line or two ; “ While, as I 
have said, most ready to accept your assurance, 
and desirous, as I have always been, of keeping all 
purely personal questions in the background, I do 
not feel myself called upon to express any opinion 
on the course which you have, doubtless after full 
consideration, adopted in regard to the requests for 
a public explanation which have been addressed to 
you by duly qualified electors of the borough.” 
The Dean felt a little uneasy when that sentence 
was read out to him ; was it possible that he had 
underrated Quisante’s resources and not perceived 
214 


A HIGHLY CORRECT ATTITUDE 


quite how many ways of escaping from a corner 
that talented gentleman might discover? Yet 
there was nothing to quarrel with in the sentence ; 
at the outside it was a courteous intimation of a 
difference of opinion and of the view (held by 
every man in the place except Sir Winterton him- 
self) that a simple explanation on a public occasion 
would have done Sir Winterton’s honour no harm 
and his cause a great deal of good. 

Such was the private answer ; the public refer- 
ence was no less neat. First came a ready and am- 
ple acceptance of the explanation which Sir Win- 
terton had given. “ I accept it unreservedly, I do 
not repeat it only because it was given to me pri- 
vately.” Then followed an expression of gratitude 
for the manly and straightforward way in which the 
speaker felt himself to have been treated by his op- 
ponent; then there was an expression of hope that 
these personal matters might disappear from the 
contest. “ Had I been sensitive, I in my turn 
might have found matter for complaint, but I was 
content to place myself in your hands, trusting to 
your good sense and fairness.” (Sir Winterton had 
not been so content.) “ I trust that the episode 
may be regarded as at an end.” Then a pause and 
— “ It is not for me, as I have already observed to 
my honourable opponent, to express any judgment 
on the course which he has seen fit to adopt. I 
have only to accept his word, which I do unhesi- 
tatingly, and it is no part of my duty to ask why he 
preferred to make his explanation to one who is 
215 


QUISANTE 

trying to prevent him from sitting in Parliament 
rather than to those whom he seeks to represent in 
that high assembly.” 

This was said gravely and was much cheered. 
As the cheering went on, a smile gradually bent 
the speaker’s broad expressive mouth ; the crowded 
benches became silent, waiting the fulfilment of 
the smile’s promise. A roguish look came into 
Quisante ’s face, he glanced at his audience, then at 
his friends on the platform, lastly at his wife who 
sat on the other side of the chairman’s table. He 
spoke lower than was his wont, colloquially, almost 
carelessly, with an amused intonation. “ At any 
rate,” he said, “ I trust that Henstead may once 
more be thought worthy of the presence of — ” He 
paused, spread out his hands, and sank his voice 
in mock humility — “ of other ladies besides — my 
wife.” 

It was well done. May’s ready laugh was but 
the first of a chorus, and Quisante, sitting down, 
knew that his shaft had sped home when somebody 
cried, “ Three cheers for Lady May Quisante ! ” 
and they gave them again and again, all standing 
on their feet. Alas for the Dean ! For some men 
there are many ways out of a corner. 


216 


CHAPTER XIII 


NOT SUPERHUMAN 

“ I don’t set up for being superhuman,” said Al- 
exander Quisante with a shrug and a smile at his 
sister-in-law, “ and I should very soon be told of my 
mistake if I did. I had nothing to do with putting 
the story about. I never countenanced it in any 
way. But since it got about, since Mildmay chose 
to give himself airs and make a fool of himself, and 
then come to me to get him out of his trouble, I 
thought myself entitled to give him one little dig.” 

“ Of course you were,” agreed Fanny. 

“ And if they choose to decide the election on 
that instead of on the Government policy, why, in 
the first place we can’t help it, and in the second 
we needn’t talk about it.” He paused and then 
added with greater gravity, “ I have nothing to re- 
proach myself with in the matter.” 

“ What’s Mr. Williams going to do ? ” 

“ Oh, he made one solemn protest and now, at 
my request, he’ll hold his tongue.” 

“ He’s done all the mischief, though,” said Jimmy 
Benyon with much satisfaction. 

It was true enough, and the triumph at the Bull 
equalled the depression at Moors End, where the 
Dean was aghast at the result of his diplomacy, and 
Sir Winterton began to perceive that he had vindi- 
217 


QUISANTE 

cated his honour at the cost of his good sense, and 
his dignity at the price of his popularity. It was 
not Henstead’s moral sense that was against him 
now, but that far more formidable enemy, Hen- 
stead’s wounded vanity. The best judges refused 
to estimate how many votes that ride on the high 
horse was likely to cost him ; but all agreed that 
the bill would be heavy; even Smiley, his own 
agent, shook a rueful head over the probable fig- 
ure. And all this advantage had accrued to the 
Quisante faction without involving any reproach 
or any charge of unfair tactics; rather were they 
praised for moderation, magnanimity, and good- 
nature. 

“ To tell the truth,” Jimmy whispered to Fanny, 
“ I never felt sure that Quisante would treat it in 
such a gentlemanly way.” 

“ No, neither did I,” Fanny confessed. “ I’m so 
glad about it.” 

“ He’s rather proud of himself, though,” chuckled 
Jimmy. 

“Yes, I know. Well, we mustn’t be too crit- 
ical,” urged Fanny. His public demeanour had 
been beyond reproach, and after all even persons of 
more delicate feeling and more exalted position 
than Quisante are apt to plume their feathers a 
little in the family circle. 

In the whirl of these last few days there was 
however little time for scrutinising the fine shades 
of manner or speculating on nice points of con- 
science. They were all worked to death, they were 
218 


NOT SUPERHUMAN 


all inflamed with enthusiasm and the determination 
to win. As was only becoming, Quisante’s wife 
was the most enthusiastic and the most resolute ; a 
thing not seeming so natural to herself was that she 
was also happier than she had ever been since her 
marriage. As the fight grew hotter, Quisante grew 
greater in her eyes ; he had less time to make pos- 
tures, she less leisure to criticise ; if he forgot him- 
self in what he was doing, she could come near to 
forgetting the side of him she disliked in an admi- 
ration of the qualities that attracted her. His 
praises were in mens mouths beyond Henstead; 
letters of congratulation came from great folk, and 
Quisante was told that his speeches had more than 
a local audience and more than a local influence. 
Sympathy joined with admiration; he was not only 
successful, he was brave ; for it was a serious ques- 
tion whether his body and his nerves would last out, 
and every night found him utterly exhausted and 
prostrate. Yet he never spared himself, he was 
wherever work was to be done, refused no call, and 
surrendered not an inch to his old and hated enemy, 
the physical weakness which had always hindered 
him. May wrote to Miss Quisante that he was 
“ wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.” There she 
paused, and added after a moment’s thought, “ It’s 
something to be his wife.” And to Mr. Foster she 
said, “ They must elect him, they can’t help it, can 
they? ” 

“ Well, I think we shall win now,” said old Fos- 
ter, smiling, but directing a rather inquisitive glance 
219 


QUISANTE 

at her. “Japhet Williams has helped us; not so 
much as Sir Winterton himself, though.” 

May’s face fell a little. “ I didn’t mean that,” she 
said. “ Oh, I suppose I want to win anyhow, but 
I’d much rather not win through that.” 

“ Must take what we can get,” murmured Fos- 
ter, quite resignedly. 

“ I suppose so ; and it’s not as if my husband, or 
you, or any of his friends had taken any part in it.” 

The inquisitive glance ceased; Foster had found 
out the answer to what it had asked ; there were 
limits to the confidence which existed between 
Lady May Quisante and her husband. But he 
only smiled comfortably ; Quisante wouldn’t talk, 
he himself was safe, and, if anything had cropped 
up in talk between him and Japhet, his skill and 
Japhet’s vanity had ensured that the little man 
should think himself the initiator, inventor, and 
sole agent in the whole affair. 

“ We’re not responsible for Japhet Williams,” 
said he. “ His vote’s safe for us now, though, and 
it means a few besides his own.” 

“ I sometimes wonder,” mused May, “ whether 
anybody at an election ever votes one way and not 
the other simply because he thinks that way right 
and the other wrong.” She laughed, adding, “ You 
don’t get the impression that they ever do, can- 
vassing and going about like this.” 

“ Must allow for local feelings, Lady May.” 

“ Yes, I know; and everybody has feelings, and I 
suppose every place is local. You say a lot of peo- 
220 


NOT SUPERHUMAN 


pie’ll vote for us because Sir Winterton wouldn’t 
let Lady Mildmay come to the town? ” 

44 A better stroke for us than any even Mr. Qui- 
sante has done.” 

44 And there’s something like that in every con- 
stituency, I suppose! How do we get governed 
even as well as we do ? ” 

Foster looked thoughtful and nursed his foot 
(in which he had a touch of the gout). 44 It’s all 
under God,” he said gravely. 44 He turns things 
to account in ways we can’t foresee, Lady May.” 
Was it possible that he was remembering the pe- 
culiar qualities of Mr. Japhet Williams ? May did 
not laugh, for Mr. Foster was obviously sincere, 
but she looked at him with surprise; his religion 
came in such odd flashes across the homely tints of 
his worldly wisdom and placid acceptance of things 
and men as he happened to find them. Henstead 
was not the Kingdom of Heaven, and he did not 
pretend to think it wise to act on the assumption 
that it was. Like Quisante, he did not set up for 
being superhuman — nor set other people up for it 
either. May felt that there were lessons to be 
learnt here ; nay, that she was making some prog- 
ress in them ; though she wondered now and then 
what Weston Marchmont would think of the les- 
sons and of her progress in them. 

44 The worst of it is,” she went on, 44 that I’m 
afraid one has to say a lot of things that are not 
exactly quite true.” 

44 Truer than the other side,” Mr. Foster affirmed 
15 221 


QUISANTE 


emphatically, his corpulence seeming to give weight 
to the dictum as he threw himself forward in his 
chair. 

“Relative truth!” laughed May. “Like No. 

77 ? ” 

“ You must ask Mr. Quisante about that.” 

“Oh, no, I won’t. I’ll listen to his speeches 
about it.” She grew grave as she went on. “ I’ve 
only asked him about one thing all through the 
election. I had to ask him about that.” 

“ Ah ! ” murmured Foster, cautiously, vaguely, 
safely. 

“ This wretched story about Sir Winterton, you 
know. And I got into terrible trouble by my 
question.” She laughed a little. “ He doesn’t as 
a rule scold me, you know, but he really did. I 
was very much surprised. Fancy boring you with 
this ! W ell, I asked him if he’d had anything to 
do with reviving the story. I asked him right 
straight out. Did you think I was like that, Mr. 
Foster? ” 

“Pretty well, pretty well,” said old Foster; he 
was smiling, but he was watching her again. 

“Was it insulting? Well, you see ” She 

stopped abruptly ; Foster was not, after" all, Aunt 
Maria, and she could not tell him how it was that 
she might ask her husband questions that sounded 
insulting. “ Anyhow he was very much offended.” 

Foster still nursed his foot, and now he shifted a 
little in his chair. 

“ He gave me his word directly, but told me he 
222 


NOT SUPERHUMAN 


was very much hurt at my asking him.” She 
smiled again. “ There’s a confession of a conjugal 
quarrel for you, Mr. Foster. Don’t talk about it, 
or Mr. Smiley will have a caricature of us throwing 
the furniture at one another. I’ve been very hum- 
ble ever since, I assure you.” 

Mr. Foster chuckled. May imagined that his 
fancy was touched by her suggestion of the carica- 
ture ; in fact he was picturing Alexander Quisante’s 
indignant disclaimer. 

“ Don’t tell him I said anything to you about it,” 
she added. 

“ You may be sure I won’t,” he promised. 

It would not have been out of harmony with Mr. 
Foster’s general theological position to consider the 
sudden and serious development of his gout as a 
direct judgment on him for a diplomacy that per- 
haps overstepped legitimate limits, and in another 
man’s case he might have adopted such a view with 
considerable complacency. When, however, he was 
laid up and placed hors du combat in the last three 
critical days, he needed all his faith to reconcile him 
to one of the most unfathomable instances of the 
workings of Providence. His grumbles were loud 
and long, and the directions which he sent from his 
sick bed were tinged with irritability. For at last 
the other side had come to its senses; Sir Winter- 
ton was affable again, Lady Mildmay was canvass- 
ing, and Mr. Smiley had high hopes. Despondency 
would have fallen on Foster’s spirit but for the re- 
port of Quisante’s exploits, performed in the teeth 
223 


QUISANTE 

of the orders of that same Dr. Tillman who had 
given Sir Winterton such excellent unprofessional 
advice touching the affair of Tom Sinnett. He 
gave Quisante just as good counsel, and with just 
as little result. Then he tried Quisante’s wife and 
found in her what he thought a hardness or an 
insensibility, or, if that were an unjust view, a sort 
of fatalism which forbade her to seek to interfere, 
and reduced her to being a spectator of her hus- 
band’s doings and destiny rather than a partner in 
them. 

44 How can he lie by now ? ” she asked. “ It’s im- 
possible; he must see this out whatever happens.” 
Quisante had said exactly the same thing, but his 
wife’s perfect agreement in it seemed strange to the 
doctor. It was making the man’s success more than 
the man ; there was too much of the Spartan wife 
about it, without the Spartan wife’s excuse of pa- 
triotism. Something of these feelings found ex- 
pression in the look with which he regarded May, 
and he allowed himself to express them more freely 
to Lady Mildmay, who would have disappointed 
the most important meeting sooner than face the 
risk of Sir Winterton’s taking cold. He told her how 
May had said, 44 He won’t stand being coddled,” 
and then had added, with a frankness which the 
doctor had not become accustomed to, 44 Besides I 
should never do it. We aren’t in the least like that 
to one another.” 

44 1 felt rather sorry for the man,” said the doc- 
tor. 44 It’s as if he was a racehorse, and they didn’t 
224 


NOT SUPERHUMAN 

think so much about him as about a win for the 
stable.” 

“Do you like him ? ” asked Lady Mildmay, 
merely in natural curiosity. But the doctor started 
a little as he answered, “ Why, no, I don’t 
like him at all.” And as he drove home he was 
thoughtful. 

“ Well, here we are at last ! ” said Jimmy Benyon 
as he sat down to breakfast on the morning of the 
polling day. “ I’m told Mildmay ’s people were ask- 
ing for six to four last night. Where’s Quisante ? ” 

“ He went out just before eight, to catch some of 
the men who work on the line and can’t be back to 
vote in the evening,” said May. 

“ Lord ! ” sighed Jimmy in a self-reproachful tone ; 
it was past nine now, and he was only just out of 
bed. “ What are you going to do ? ” 

“ Drive and bow and smile and shake hands,” said 
May. “ And you’re going to and fro in a wagonette 
of Mr. Williams’ — without any springs, you know. 
And Mr. Dunn’s going to take Fanny in one of 
his waggons ; she’ll have to sit on a plank without 
a back all day, so I told her to stay in bed till she 
has to start at ten.” 

‘ 4 It’s a devilish difficult question,” said Jimmy 
meditatively, “whether it’s all worth it, you 
know.” 

“ Oh, it’s worth more than that,” said May lightly, 
as she sprang up and put on her hat. “ It’s worth — 
well, almost anything. Six to four ? They expect 
us to win then ? ” 


225 


QUISANTE 

“ By a neck, yes.” He glanced at her and added 
rather uneasily, ‘ 4 They say friend Japhet’s done 
the trick for us.” She made no answer, and he 
went on hastily, “Old Foster’s still in bed, and 
the waiter says he’s written five notes to your hus- 
band already — a regular row of them in the bar, 
you know.” 

“ Last instructions ? ” 

“ Oh, somebody else to be nobbled, don’t you 
know ; some fellow who wants to marry his deceased 
wife’s sister — or else is afraid he’ll have to if they 
pass the Bill. And there’s the butcher in Market 
Street who’s got some trouble about slaughter- 
houses that I’m simply hanged if I can understand. 
I jawed with him for half-an-hour yesterday, and 
then didn’t hook him safe.” 

“ Alexander must find time to go and hook him,” 
said May, smiling. ‘ e Alexander’ll be great on 
slaughter-houses.” 

“ And at the last minute Smiley’s been hinting 
something about Mildmay giving a bit of land to 
extend the Recreation Ground. A beastly un- 
scrupulous fellow I call Smiley.” 

“ Oh, poor Mr. Smiley ! he wants to win.” 

<e He might play fair, though.” 

“ Might he ? Oh, well, I suppose so. We’ve 
played fair anyhow — pretty fair, haven’t we ? ” 

“ Rather ! ” 

“ You really think so, Jimmy? ” She was serious 
now ; Jimmy reached out his hand and touched 
hers for a moment; he divined that she was 
226 


NOT SUPERHUMAN 

asking him for a verdict and was anxious what it 
might be. 

“Rather!” he said again. “That’s all right. 
We’ve kept to the rules square enough.” 

“ Then I’m off to bow and smile ! ” she cried. 
As she went by she touched his hand again. 
“ Thanks, Jimmy,” she said. 

Jimmy, left alone, stretched himself, sighed, and 
lit a cigar ; they were nearly out of the wood now, 
and they had managed to play pretty fair. For 
his own sake he was glad, since he had been mixed 
up in the campaign ; he had perception enough to 
be far more glad for May Quisante’s. 

Through all the fever of that day the same glad- 
ness and relief were in her heart in a form a thou- 
sandfold more intense. They enabled her to do 
her bowing and smiling, to hope eagerly, to work 
unceasingly, to be gay and happy in the excitement 
of fighting and the prospect of victory. She could 
put aside the memory of Tom Sinnett; they had 
not been to blame ; let that affair be set off against 
Smiley’s hypothetical extension of the Recreation 
Ground. She felt that she could face people, above 
all that she could face the Mildmays when the time 
came for her to meet them at the declaration of 
the poll. And as regarded her husband she could 
do more than praise and more than admire; she 
could feel tenderness and a touch of remorse as she 
saw him battling against worse than the enemy, 
against a deadly weariness and weakness to which 
he would not yield. From to-morrow she deter- 
227 


QUISANTE 

mined to lay to heart the doctor’s counsel, to try 
whether he could not be persuaded to stand a little 
coddling, whether he might not be brought to, if 
only she could persuade herself to show him more 
love. When she looked at the Mildmays she un- 
derstood what had perhaps been in the doctor’s 
mind; dear Lady Mildmay (she was a woman who 
immediately claimed that epithet with its expres- 
sion of mingled affection and ridicule) no doubt 
overdid a little her pleasant part. She made Sir 
Winterton a trifle absurd. But then with what 
chivalry he faced and covered the touch of absurd- 
ity, or avoided it without offending the love that 
caused it ! Very glad she was that, when Lady 
Mildmay asked to be introduced, she could clasp 
hands with the consciousness that her side had 
played fair, and by a delicate distant reference 
could honestly assure the enemy’s wife that both 
she and her husband had looked with disfavour on 
that unpleasant episode. 

She had known she would like Sir Winterton 
and was not disappointed; she saw that he was 
very favourably impressed by her, largely, no doubt, 
because she was handsome, even more because their 
ways of looking at things would be very much the 
same ; they had the same pride and the same sen- 
sitiveness ; in humour he was not her match, or he 
would not have ridden his high horse. She felt 
that he complimented her in begging her to make 
him known to Quisant£; and this office also she 
was able to perform with pleasure, because they 
228 


NOT SUPERHUMAN 


had played fair. Hope was high in her that night, 
not merely for this contest, not merely now for her 
husband’s career, but for her life and his, for her 
and him themselves. If her old fears had been 
proved wrong, if in face of temptation he had not 
yielded, if now by honourable means he had made 
good his footing, things might go better in the 
future, that constant terror vanish, and there be 
left only what she admired and what attracted her. 
For they had kept to the rules square enough ; 
Quisante had played fair. 

She heard Sir Winterton tell him so in a friendly 
phrase, just touched with a pleasantly ornate pom- 
pousness ; eagerly looking, she saw Quisante accept 
the compliment just as he should, as a graceful 
tribute from an antagonist, as no more than his due 
from anyone who knew him. She smiled to think 
that she could write and tell Aunt Maria that San- 
dro was improving, that even his manners grew 
better and better as success gave him confidence, 
and confidence produced simplicity. Making a 
friendly group with their rivals in the ante-room, 
they were able to forget the little fretful man who 
paced up and down, carefully avoiding Sir Winter- 
ton’s eye, but asserting by the obstinate pose of 
his head and the fierce pucker on his brow that he 
had done no more than his duty in asking a plain 
answer to a plain question, and that on Sir Winter- 
ton’s head, not on his, lay the consequences of 
evasion. 

Presently the group separated. The little heaps 
229 


QUISANTE 

of paper on the long table in the inner room had 
grown from tens to hundreds ; the end was near. 
Quisante’s agent stood motionless behind the clerks 
who counted, Jimmy Benyon looking over his 
shoulder eagerly. Smiley regarded the heaps for 
a moment or two and then walked across to Sir 
Winterton. Through the doorway May saw Sir 
Winterton bend his head, listen, nod, smile, and 
turn and whisper to his friends. At the next mo- 
ment Jimmy Benyon came to the door, caught her 
eye, smiled, and nodded energetically. The pre- 
siding officer looked down the row of men counting 
to right and left. “ Are you all agreed on your 
figures?” he asked. They exchanged papers, 
counted, whispered a little, recovered their own 
papers. “Yes,” ran along the row, and the presid- 
ing officer pushed back his chair. In a single in- 
stant Quisante was the centre of a throng of 
people shaking his hand, and everybody crowded 
into the inner room. 

“ How many ? ” asked Sir Winterton Mildmay. 

“ Forty-seven, Sir Winterton,” answered Smiley. 

So it was over, and Alexander Quisante was 
again Member for Henstead. “ Send somebody to 
tell Foster,” May heard him say before he followed 
to the window from which the announcement was 
to be made. He was very pale and walked rather 
unsteadily. “ Stay by Mr. Quisante ; I think he’s 
not very well,” she whispered to the agent. The 
next moment two of Sir Winterton’s prominent 
supporters passed her ; one spoke to the other half 
230 


NOT SUPERHUMAN 

in a whisper. “ That damned Sinnett business has 
done us,” he said. 

Her cheek flushed suddenly; it was horrible to 
think that. Still they had played fair, and it was 
no fault of theirs. 

“ Let me be the first to congratulate you,” said a 
gentle voice. 

She turned and found Lady Mildmay beside her ; 
Sir Winterton s wife was smiling, but there were 
tears in her eyes. 

“ do get your husband home to bed ; he 
looks terribly, terribly tired. I’m afraid he’s not 
nearly as strong as Winterton ; but I’m sure you 
take great care of him.” 

“ Not so much as I ought to.” Lady Mildmay, 
accustomed to straightforward emotions, was puz- 
zled at the half- bitter half-merry tone. “ I mean I 
egg him on when perhaps I ought to hold him 
back. I know he ought to rest, but I never want 
him to — never really want it, you know.” Lady 
Mildmay still looked puzzled. “ He’s at his best 
working,” said May. 

“ W ell, but you must want him to yourself some- 
times anyhow, and that’s a rest for him.” 

Oh, the differences of people and fates ! That 
was May’s not original but irresistible reflection 
when Lady Mildmay left her. Want him to her- 
self! Never — or never as Lady Mildmay meant, 
anyhow. She only wanted a good place whence 
to look at him. 

She had one more encounter before Jimmy Ben- 
231 


QUISANTE 

yon came 'to take her home. Japhet Williams 
came up to her and made her shake hands. 

“We have got a representative in whom we can 
have confidence,” he said. 

“ I hope so, Mr. Williams.” She smiled to think 
how exactly she was speaking the truth — a rare 
privilege in social intercourse. 

“ Don’t think that I resent in any way the dis- 
tant attitude which Mr. Quisante thought it desir- 
able to take up in regard to my action,” pursued 
Japhet; it seemed odd that such a coil of words 
could be unrolled from so small a body. “ My 
course was incumbent on me. I recognise that his 
attitude was proper for him.” 

“I’m so glad, Mr. Williams,” May murmured 
vaguely. 

“ I could take the course I did because I had 
nothing to gain by it, nothing personally. Being 
personally interested, he could not have moved in 
the matter. I hope you see my point of view as 
well as his, Lady May ? ” 

“ Oh, perfectly. I — I’m sure you’re both right.” 

“ My conscience doesn’t blame me,” said Japhet 
solemnly; and something in his manner made May 
remark to Jimmy, when he came to take her home, 
“ What a lot of excellent people are spoilt by their 
consciences ! ” 

Quisante had disappeared, engulfed in a vortex 
of triumphant supporters, carried off by arms linked 
in his, or perhaps hoisted in uncomfortable grandeur 
on enthusiastic but unsteady shoulders. The street 
232 


NOT SUPERHUMAN 


was densely packed, and Jimmy’s apparently simple 
course of returning straight to the hotel proved to 
be a work of much time and difficulty. But the 
stir of life was there, all around them, and May’s 
eyes grew bright as she felt it. Now at least it 
could not seem a difficult question whether the re- 
sult were worth the effort ; triumph drove out such 
doubts. 

44 I’m so glad we’ve won ; I’m so glad we’ve won,” 
she kept repeating in simple girlish enthusiasm as 
Jimmy steered her through the crowd, heading tow- 
ards the Bull whenever he could make a yard or 
two. 4 4 Though I’m awfully sorry for Lady Mild- 
may,” she added once. 

So long were they in getting through that on 
their arrival they found that Quisante had reached 
home before them. His journey had been hurried; 
he had been taken faint and the rejoicings were of 
necessity interrupted ; he was upstairs now on the 
sofa. May ran up, followed by Fanny and Jimmy, 
passing many groups of anxious friends on the way. 
Quisante was stretched in a sort of stupor; he was 
quite white, his eyes were closed. She knelt down 
by him and called him by his name. 

44 He’s quite done up,” said Jimmy, and he went 
to the sideboard and got hold of the brandy. 

44 Ho keep everybody out,” called May, and Fan- 
ny shut the door on half-a-dozen inquisitive people. 
Both she and Jimmy were looking very serious; 
May grew frightened when she turned and saw 
their faces. 


233 


QUISANTE 

“ He’s only tired ; hell be all right again soon,” 
she protested. “ Give me a little brandy and water, 
Jimmy.” 

They stood looking at her while she did her best 
for him ; a slight surprise was in their faces ; they 
had never seen her minister to him before. Did 
she really love him? The question escaped from 
Jimmy’s eyes, and Fanny’s acknowledged without 
answering it. Presently Quisante sighed and 
opened his eyes. 

“ Drink some of this,” said his wife low and ten- 
derly. “ Do drink some.” She was kneeling by 
him, one arm under his shoulder, the other offering 
the glass. 

“We’ve done it, haven’t we?” he murmured, as 
she tilted the glass to his lips. The drink revived 
him ; with her help he hoisted himself higher on 
the sofa and looked at her. A smile came on his 
face ; they heard him whisper, “ My darling ! ” 
Again it struck them both as a little strange that 
he should call her that. But she smiled in answer 
and made him drink again. 

“Yes, you’ve won; you always win,” they heard 
her whisper softly. She had forgotten all now, ex- 
cept that he had won, that her faith stood justified, 
and he lay half- dead from the work of vindicating 
it. At that moment she would have been no man’s 
if she could not be Alexander Quisante’s. 

There was a knock at the door ; Jimmy Benyon 
went and opened it ; he came back holding a note, 
and gave it to May; it was addressed to her hus- 
234 


NOT SUPERHUMAN 


band in a pencil scrawl. 44 A congratulation for 
you,” she said to Quisantd He glanced carelessly 
and languidly at it, murmuring, 44 Read it to me, 
please,” and she broke open the sealed envelope. 
Inside the writing was as negligent a scribble as on 
the outside, the writing of a man in bed, with a 
stump of pencil. Old Mr. Foster wrote better when 
he was up and abroad, so much better that Qui- 
sante’s tired eyes had not marked the hand for his. 

44 Read it out to me,” said Quisante, his eyes now 
dwelling gratefully on his wife’s face, his brain at 
last resting from the long strain of weeks of effort. 

44 Yes, I’ll read it,” she said cheerfully, almost 
merrily. 44 We shall be full of congratulations for 
days now, shan’t we ? ” 

She smoothed out the sheet of paper ; there were 
but two or three lines of writing, and she read them 
aloud. She read aloud the simple indiscreet little 
hymn of triumph which victory and the safety of a 
private note lured from old Mr. Foster’s usually 
diplomatic lips : — 

44 Just done it, thank God. Shouldn’t have with- 
out Tom Sinnett, and we’ve got you to thank for 
that idea too.” 

She read it all before she seemed to put any . 
meaning into it. A silence followed her reading. 
She knelt there by him, holding the sheet of note- 
paper in her hands. Fanny and Jimmy stood with- 
out moving, their eyes on her and Quisante. 
Slowly May rose to her feet. Quisante closed his 
eyes and moved restlessly on the sofa; he sighed 
235 


QUISANTE 

and put his hand up to his head. The slightest of 
smiles came on May’s lips as she stood looking at 
him for a minute ; then she turned to Fanny, say- 
ing, 44 I think he’d better have a little more brandy- 
and- water.” She walked across to the mantlepiece, 
the crumpled sheet of paper in her hand. She 
looked at Fanny with the little smile still on her 
lips as she lit a candle and burnt the note in its 
flame, dropping the ashes into the grate. Quisante 
lay as though unconscious, taking no heed of his 
sister-in-law’s proffered services. Jimmy Benyon 
stood in awkward stillness, looking at May. Sud- 
denly May broke into a laugh. 

44 Just as well to burn it ; it might be misunder- 
stood,” said she. Jimmy moved towards her 
quickly and impulsively. 44 No, no, I’m all right,” 
she went on. 44 And we’ve won, haven’t we ? I’m 
going to my room. Look after him.” She paused 
and added, smiling still, 44 His head’s very bad, you 
know.” And so, pale and smiling, she left her hus- 
band to their care. 

The ashes of Mr. Foster’s note seemed to crinkle 
into a sour grin where they lay on the black-leaded 
floor of the fire-grate. 


236 


CHAPTER XIV 


OPEN EYES 

It is a matter of common observation that the 
local influences and peculiarities which loom so 
large before the eyes of both parties during such a 
struggle as that at Henstead seem to be entirely 
forgotten after the declaration of the poll, at least 
by the victorious faction and their friends in the 
Press and the country. Out of a congeries of con- 
flicting views, fancies, fads, interests, quarrels, and 
misunderstandings a reasoned and single political 
verdict is considered to emerge, and great is the 
credit of the advocate who extracts it from the 
multitudinous jury. When Quisante had won 
Henstead, little more was heard of the gentleman 
with a deceased wife’s sister, of the butcher in 
trouble about slaughter-houses, of Japhet Williams’ 
conscience or Tom Sinnett’s affair. The result was 
taken as an augury of triumph for the party all over 
the country, where these things had never been 
heard of and the voices of Henstead did not reach. 
Unhappily however, as events proved, the victory 
of Henstead had in the end to be regarded not as 
the inauguration of a triumphant campaign but as 
a brilliant exploit performed in face of an over- 
whelming enemy. To be brief, the Government 
was beaten, somewhat badly beaten, the great cry 
16 237 


QUISANTE 

was a failure, and there were many casualties in the 
ranks. Marchmont kept his seat by virtue of per- 
sonal and hereditary popularity; but Dick Benyon, 
who had been considered quite safe, lost his, a 
fate shared by many who had deemed themselves 
no less secure. 

44 1 suppose you preached your miserable Cru- 
sade, as you call it ? ” said Constantine Blair. They 
were at dinner at Marchmont’s, More wood and the 
Dean also being of the company. 

44 1 did, and without it I should have got a worse 
thrashing,” said Dick stoutly ; it would be unkind 
to scrutinise too closely the sincerity of this state- 
ment. 

“Quisante had the sense to throw it over,” 
growled Constantine ; his equanimity was not up to 
its usual standard. 

44 It’s wisdom to lighten the ship in a storm,” 
smiled Marchmont. 

44 Yes, and to jettison other people’s heavy lug- 
gage first,” said Morewood. 

44 The duty of a captain, I suppose,” murmured 
the Dean with a smile. 

44 You needn’t begin with your best guns,” argued 
Dick, a little hotly. 

44 We can’t let Dick appropriate our metaphor to 
his own purposes,” said Marchmont. 44 As a mat- 
ter of fact now, had the Crusade much to do with 
it?” 

Morewood interposed before Dick could answer. 

44 Oh, only as a Crusade. 4 Causes ’ of any kind 
238 


OPEN EYES 


are properly suspected,” said he. 44 For my part I 
should imitate the noble simplicity of municipal 
election bills. 4 Down with the rates ! ’ Quite 
enough, you know. The end is indisputably at- 
tractive, and you aren’t such an ass as to try to in- 
dicate the means. So you get in.” 

44 And don’t do it ? ” The question was March- 
mont’s. 

44 Of course not — or what would you have to say 
next time ? ” 

44 The other side has always prevented your doing 
it ? ” the Dean suggested. 

44 Mostly, yes — by factious opposition.” 

44 You fellows don’t seem to care,” observed Con- 
stantine Blair moodily, 44 but I tell you we re out 
for four or five years at least.” 

There was a pause ; the accused persons looked 
at one another; then Marchmont had the courage 
to observe that the country would perhaps live 
through the period of calamity before it. 

44 The country, yes, but how about some of the 
party ? ” asked Morewood. 44 How about that, 
Blair? You’re supposed to be the man who feeds 
the ravens and providently caters for the sparrows, 
you know. You’ll have your hands full, I should 
think.” 

Blair’s look expressed the opinion that they 
trenched on mysteries ; he had these little traits of 
self-importance, sitting funnily on a round and 
merry face. Marchmont laughed as he turned to 
Dick and enquired after Jimmy. 

239 


QUISANTE 

44 He was helping you, I suppose ? ” 

44 Yes, after Quisante was in. He’s all right.” 
Dick’s tone was slightly reserved. 

“Did Quisante help you? He seems to have 
helped everybody ; the man ran about like an elec- 
tric current.” 

“ I didn’t ask him to come to me. I felt, you 
know ” 

“Yes, I see. But Jimmy didn’t? ” 

Dick looked rather puzzled. 44 1 don’t quite 
make Jimmy out about Quisante,” he remarked. 
44 He worked for him like a horse all the time, and 
wrote me letters praising him to the skies. Then 
when he was in and everybody was cracking him 
up Jimmy wouldn’t open his mouth about him — 
seemed not to like the subject, you know.” 

Nobody spoke ; they had heard rumours of an 
event which would bring Jimmy into new relations 
with Quisante, and they waited for possible infor- 
mation. But Dick did not go on, so it was left to 
Morewood to make the necessary intrusion into 
private affairs ; he did it willingly, with a malicious 
grin. 

44 Thinking him over in the light of a relation, 
perhaps? ” he suggested. 

44 It would only be a connection anyhow,” Dick 
corrected rather sharply. 

44 Oh, if that comforts you ! ” said Morewood, 
laughing. 

44 She’s a charming girl and I’m awfully glad it’s 
come off.” 


240 


OPEN EYES 


“ Oh, it has ? ” asked Marchmont. 

“Yes, the other day.” 

“ And you’re glad in spite of ? ” 

“ Yes, I am. Besides I don’t mean anything of 
that sort. I suppose I know as well as anybody 
what Quisante is.” 

“ As far as I’m concerned I’ll admit you do, and 
still feel you don’t know much,” remarked the 
Dean. 

“Well, I wish there were more men like him,” 
said Blair, nodding vigorously. 

“Some men would sacrifice anything for their 
party,” remarked Morewood. 

Marchmont took no part in the talk about Qui- 
sant£ ; he could not praise ; for reasons very plain 
to himself he would not say a word in blame or 
depreciation. Not only had he been Quisante ’s 
rival, but ever since his talk with May he had felt 
himself the repository of special information, im- 
perfect indeed and shadowy, yet beyond that which 
the outside world possessed. Besides he had re- 
ceived two letters from her, one written in the course 
of the fight, gay in tone, expressing an eager inter- 
est in her husband’s fortunes, keenly appreciative of 
her husband’s brilliancy and bravery. The second, 
in reply to his telegram of congratulation, had run 
in another key; an utter weariness and an almost 
disgusted satiety seemed to have superseded her 
former interest. Side by side with these he had 
discovered in the repressed but eloquent words of 
her greeting to him an intense desire to see him. 

241 


QUISANTE 

44 I want a change so badly,” she wrote. 44 1 want 
somebody unpractical, unpushing. You must come 
directly we’re back in town.” They had been back 
in town ten days, he knew, but he had not yet 
obeyed her summons. The thought crossed his 
mind that the contrast between her two letters was 
an odd parallel to Dick’s description of the puzzling 
demeanour of his brother Jimmy. Was it a char- 
acteristic of the man’s to produce these sudden and 
startling changes of mood towards himself? March- 
mont was puzzled at the notion ; he was too little 
able to sympathise with the attraction to find him- 
self capable of understanding the force and extent 
of the revulsion. 44 At all events she must be pretty 
well prepared for what he is by now,” he said to 
himself with the mixture of pity and resentment 
which his love for her and her rejection of him in 
Quisante’s favour had bred in his mind. For her 
he was very sorry ; it was harder to be quite simply 
and sincerely sorry that her blindness to what had 
been so obvious was working out its inevitable 
result; he would like to console her in any way 
short of refraining from pointing out how wrong 
she had been proved. 

When, in obedience to another note, he went, he 
did not at first find May alone. Although he knew 
Sir Winterton Mildmay, he was not acquainted 
with his wife, and was surprised when the kind- 
looking woman who sat with May was introduced 
to him as Lady Mildmay. This was a quick and 
thorough burying of the hatchet indeed. “ Would 
242 


OPEN EYES 


you see this in any country except England ? ” he 
asked jokingly. Lady Mildmay declared not, add- 
ing that there was no bitterness in England because 
there was only upstanding fighting which left no 
rancour and indeed bred personal liking. March- 
mont thought to himself that Quisante must have 
been very clever — or that this dear woman (he gave 
her the epithet at once as everybody did) was not 
very clever, no cleverer than he had long known 
handsome Sir Winterton to be. Glancing across at 
May, he seemed to see an expression of absolute 
pain on her face, as Lady Mildmay developed these 
amiable theories. 

“ I don’t believe my husband will ever stand 
against yours again,” she said. 

May looked at Marchmont. “ They really have 
taken quite a fancy to one another,” she said with a 
laugh that sounded rather forced. “Funny, isn’t 
it?” 

“ The speech you invite me to would be a very 
unfortunate one to address to the wives of the two 
gentlemen,” he answered, smiling. “ Funny in- 
deed! I prefer to call it inevitable, don’t you, 
Lady Mildmay? ” 

May made the slightest gesture of impatience, 
but a moment later smiled again at Lady Mildmay, 
saying, “Yes, I suppose that’s what I ought to 
have said.” 

The visitor rose to go; approaching May, she 
first shook hands and then stood for a moment 
with a half-expectant half-imploring air. It was 
243 


QUISANTE 

plain that she suggested a kiss. Marchmont looked 
on rather amused; he knew that May Quisante 
was not given to effusiveness. It would, however, 
have been cruel not to kiss Lady Mildmay, and 
May kissed her with an excellent grace. 

“Well,” said Marchmont when the door was 
shut, “ she takes defeat prettily. Evidently you’ve 
made a conquest, as well as your husband.” 

“ I wish she wouldn’t come here,” said May, wan- 
dering to the window and speaking in a disconso- 
late voice. 

“ You don’t like her? ” 

“ Like her ? Oh, of course I like the dear crea- 
ture ! Who wouldn’t ? And I like him too.” She 
turned round, smiling a little. “ He’s so nice, and 
large, and clean, and direct, and obvious, and sim- 
ple, you know. I like him just as I like a great 
rosy apple.” 

“ Hum ! I don’t eat many of those, do you ? ” 

She laughed, but rather reluctantly. “ Perhaps 
that’s more your fault than the apple’s. Still I 
agree. A bite now and then. But they’re mostly 
only to dress the table.” 

“ Why don’t you want her to come? ” 

May sat down and fidgeted with a nick-nack on 
the table. 

“ Don’t you think being forgiven’s rather tire- 
some work ? ” she asked. “ They don’t mean that, 
I know, but I can’t help feeling as if they did.” 

“ I don’t see why you should.” 

She looked full at him for a moment. “No, I 
244 


OPEN EYES 


didn’t suppose you would see it,” she said. 44 Don’t 
stand there, come and sit here, — near me. I’ve 
written you three letters, but you don’t seem to 
understand yet that I want to see you.” He took 
the chair near her to which she had pointed ; she 
looked at him, evidently with both pleasure and 
amusement. 44 You don’t look the least as if you’d 
been electioneering,” she told him in an admiring 
congratulatory tone. 

44 I’ve had the egg-marks brushed off,” he ex- 
plained with the insincere gravity that he knew 
she liked. 

44 Will they brush off ? Will they always brush 
off?” she asked, her voice low, her hands nursing 
her knee, her eyes on his. 

44 Parables, my lady ? ” 

44 Yes. Do you know that we won the election 
because rosy Sir Winterton was supposed to have 
flirted with his keeper’s daughter, and wouldn’t say 
he hadn’t, and wouldn’t bring that dear soul where 
anybody was likely to say he had? ” 

44 No, I hadn’t heard that. I thought your hus- 
band’s ” 

44 Oh, yes, all that helped. He was splendid. 
But we shouldn’t have done it without the keep- 
er’s daughter.” 

44 Vox populi , vox Dei; they’re both so hard to 
understand.” 

44 I’ve been longing for you,” she said, seeming to 
awake suddenly from her half-dreamy half-playful 
account of the life she had been living. The speech, 
245 


QUISANTE 

with its cruel frankness and its more cruel affection, 
embittered him. 

“ When you’re tired of a rosy apple, you like a 
bite at a bitter cherry ? One bite ; the rest of me, 
I suppose, is only to dress the table.” 

She understood him. 

“ Well, then, you shouldn’t come,” she protested. 
“ I’ve been fair about it.” 

“No, not always ; what you write and say now 
and then isn’t fair unless it means something more.” 

“ Oh, I don’t know what it means.” 

Her misery drove away his resentment, and pity 
filled its place. 

“You seem more than usually down on your 
luck,” he said with a smile. 

“ Yes, a little,” she confessed. “ It’s the Mild- 
mays and — and — the general sham of it, you know.” 
She glanced across at him, smiling. “ That’s why I 
longed for you,” she said. 

It seemed to him that never had fate and never 
had woman been so cruel. The one so nearly had 
given what he wanted, the other tantalised with the 
exhibition of a feeling only just short of what he 
hoped for, but the more merciless because it 
seemed not to understand by how narrow an inch 
it failed of his desires. He spoke to her hardly and 
coldly. 

“ You seem to me to choose to try a bit of every- 
thing and a bit of everybody,” he said. “ That’s 
your affair. But I’m not surprised that you don’t 
find it satisfactory.” 


246 


OPEN EYES 


“ I have to try more than I like of some things 
and some people,” she replied. She went on 
quickly, “I know, oh, I know! Now you’re call- 
ing me disloyal ! ” 

A curious vexation laid hold of him. Once he 
had liked her to speak of him in this strain, even as 
once he had loved to see in her the type of the 
pure, calm, gracious maiden. Now he knew better 
both her and himself. The impulse was on him to 
say that he cared nothing for her disloyalty so that 
he himself was the cause of it and he himself to 
reap the benefit. He was quick to read her, and he 
read in her restless misery some sore discontent 
with the lot that she had chosen. But he refrained 
from the words, not in his turn from any loyalty, 
but rather still from bitterness, from a perverse 
desire to give her nothing of what she had refused, 
to leave her in the solitude of spirit which came of 
her own action. Besides his fastidiousness revolted 
from plunging him into a position which was so 
common, and which he, with his dislike of things 
common, had always counted vulgar. Thus he was 
silent, and she also sat silent, looking straight before 
her. At last, however, she spoke. 

“ Alexander’s gone to the city,” she said, “ to see 
his stockbroker. The stockbroker’s a cousin of — 
ours.” She smiled for a moment. “ His name’s 
Mandeville. Since the party’s out, we’ve got to 
see if we can make some money.” 

His pity revived ; whatever she deserved, it was 
not this horrible common-place lot of wanting 
247 


QUISANTE 

money ; that sat so ill on his still stately, no longer 
faultless, image of her. 

44 To make some money ? ” he repeated, half- 
scornful, half-puzzled. 

44 Oh, you’re rich — you don’t know. We spent a 
lot at Henstead. We must have money : I spend 
a lot, so does Alexander.” She glanced at him, and 
he saw that something had nearly escaped her lips 
of which she repented. “ Do you ever feel,” she 
went on, apparently by way of amendment, 44 as if 
you might be dishonest — under stress of circum- 
stances, you know ? ” 

“I suppose I might. I’ve never thought about it.” 

“ So dishonest as — as to get into trouble and be 
sent to prison and so on ? ” 

44 Oh, I should hope to be skilful enough to avoid 
that,” he laughed. 44 Fools ought never to be dis- 
honest ; so they invented the 6 best policy ’ proverb 
to keep themselves straight.” 

May nodded. 44 That’s it, I think,” she said, and 
fell into silence again. This time he spoke. 

44 1 don’t like your wanting money,” he said in a 
low voice. 

44 No, I know,” she smiled. 44 It’s not like what 
you’ve always chosen to think I’m like. I ought to 
live in gilded halls and scatter largesse, oughtn’t 
I ? ” She laughed a little bitterly. 44 Perhaps I 
will, if cousin Mandeville does his duty.” 

44 Meanwhile you feel the temptation to dishon- 
esty ? ” He paused, but then went on deliberately, 
44 Or, to follow your rule of complete identification, 
248 


OPEN EYES 

shall I say ‘ we feel a temptation to dishonesty, do 

we?’” 

“ Oh, but we should be clever enough not to be 
found out, shouldn’t we ? ” 

“ I think you would.” 

“You’ve not half such good reason to think it 
as I have.” She rose, walked to the hearth-rug, 
and stood facing the grate, her back turned to him. 
She seemed to him to be looking at a photograph 
which he noticed now for the first time on the 
mantelpiece, the picture of a stout elderly man with 
large clean-shaven face and an expression of tolerant 
shrewdness. Marchmont moved close to her shoul- 
der and looked also. Perceiving him, she half turned 
her head towards him. “That’s my husband’s 
right-hand man at Henstead,” she said. “They 
understand each other perfectly.” 

“ He looks a sharp fellow.” 

“ So he may be able to understand Alexander ? 
Thank you. I like to have his picture here.” Sud- 
denly she turned round full on him, stretching out 
her hand. “ I wish you’d go now,” she said. “ Have 
you turned stupid, or don’t you see that you must 
leave me alone, or — or I shall say all sorts of things 
I mustn’t? That man on the mantelpiece there 
typifies it all. Bless his dear old fat face ! I like 
him so much — and he’s such a humbug, and I don’t 
think he knows that he’s in the least a humbug. Is 
sincerity just stupidity ? ” Her mirth broke out. 
“Alexander hates my having him there,” she 
whispered ; then she drew away, crying, “ Go, go.” 


QUISANTE 

“ I’m off,” said he. “ But why doesn’t Quisantd 
like the old gentleman’s picture, and why do you 
keep it there if he doesn’t ? ” 

“ And why are none of us perfect — except per- 
haps the Mildmays? Good-bye.” She gave him 
her hand. “ Oh, by the way,” she went on, calling 
him back after he had turned, “ have you ever had 
anything to do with promoting companies or any- 
thing of that kind? ” 

“Well, no, I can’t say I have.” 

“ Is it necessarily disreputable ? ” 

“ Oh, no,” he smiled. “ Not necessarily. In fact 
it’s an essential feature in the life of a commercial 
nation.” He was mockingly grave again. 

“Thank you very much, Mr. Marchmont. An 
essential feature of the life in a commercial nation ! 
That’s very good.” She broke into a laugh. 
“ Now I’ve got something agreeable to say,” she 
said. He did not move till she shook her head 
violently at him and pointed to the door. As he 
went out, she turned back to Mr. Foster’s picture, 
murmuring, “ It’s no use my setting up for a mar- 
tyr. Martyrs don’t giggle half the time.” Had 
Marchmont heard her, the word “giggle” would 
have stirred him to real indignation ; it was so in- 
appropriate to that low reluctant mirth-laden laugh 
of hers, which seemed to reveal the feeling that it 
mocked and extorted the pity that it could not but 
deride. It sounded again as she stood looking at 
old Foster the maltster’s picture there on the man- 
telpiece where Quisante did not like to see it. 

250 


OPEN EYES 


For what was the meaning of it to her, declared 
by her perverse determination to keep it there and 
plain enough to her husband’s quick wit ? It was 
the outward sign that her malicious fancy chose of 
the new state of feeling and the new relation be- 
tween them which had emerged from the tempest 
of emotion that Foster’s congratulatory note had 
thrown her into. The tempest had raged in soli- 
tude and silence ; she had not spoken a word to 
her sister or to Jimmy Benyon, hardly a word to 
Quisante himself. He had his case of course, and 
she was obliged to hear it, to hear also Foster’s 
own account of how he came to express himself so 
awkwardly and to write as though Mr. Quisante 
had originally set the story afloat, whereas he meant 
only to applaud the tact with which his leader had 
regulated their conduct towards it after it was 
started. May said she was quite sure he had meant 
only this, thanked him for all his services, and 
begged the photograph. Quisante approved this 
bearing towards the third party but was not de- 
ceived by it himself. When the picture was set 
on the mantelpiece, he understood that his case 
was not convincing, that the episode would not fall 
into the oblivion which he had suggested for it ; 
it would not be forgotten and could not be for- 
given. Deeply resentful of this treatment — for he 
saw nothing very bad in his manoeuvre — he had 
been moved to protest passionately, to explain vol- 
ubly, and to offer pledge on pledge. Protests, 
plaints, and promises broke uselessly against the 
251 


QUISANTE 

cool, composed, indulgent friendliness of her bear- 
ing. She gave him to understand that no pre- 
tences were longer possible between them, but that 
they would get along without them. She allowed 
him to see that the one fear left to her on his ac- 
count was the apprehension that some day he would 
be found out by other people. Here her terror 
was as great as it had ever been, for her pride was 
unbroken; but she did not show him the full ex- 
tent of her anxiety. 

44 You ought to be particularly careful, so many 
people would like to see you come to grief.” This, 
or something like it, was what she had said, by way 
of dismissing the subject for ever from their con- 
versation with one another. It expressed very well 
her new position, how she had abandoned those 
mad hopes of changing him and fallen back on the 
resolve to see the truth of him herself and make 
the best of him to others. But the very calmness 
and friendliness of the warning told him how reso- 
lutely she had chosen her path, while they con- 
cealed the shame and the fear with which she set 
herself to tread it. One thing only Quisantd un- 
derstood quite clearly ; it was no use acting to her 
any more ; what she wished was that he should 
cease to act to her. Y et, knowing this, he could not 
cease, it was not in his nature to cease, and he went 
on playing his part before eyes that he knew were 
not imposed on but saw through all his disguises. 
His old furtiveness of manner came back now when 
he talked over himself and his affairs with his wife. 

252 


OPEN EYES 


But even here he had his triumph, he was not at 
her mercy, he wielded a power of his own ; she rec- 
ognised it with a smile. Like Aunt Maria, what- 
ever she might think of him, she was bound to 
think constantly of him, to be occupied with his 
doings and his success, to want to know what was 
in his mind, yes, although it might be what she 
hated to find there. For a while he had withdrawn 
himself from her, ceasing to tell of his life, aims, 
and doings. If he sought thus to bring her to 
terms, she proved an easy conquest ; she surren- 
dered at once, laughing at herself and at him. 
“ Were partners,” she said, “ and I must hear all 
about what you’re doing. I can’t live without 
that, you know.” And as the price of what she 
must have she gave him friendship, sympathy, and 
comradeship, crossing his wishes in nothing and 
never allowing herself to upbraid except in that 
small tacit jeer of Mr. Foster’s picture on the 
mantelpiece. For now she believed herself to 
know the worst, and yet to be able to endure. 

What sort of life promised to form itself out of 
this state of affairs ? For after all she was at the 
beginning of life, and he hardly well into the mid- 
dle of his. Neither of the two obvious things 
seemed possible ; devotion was out of the question, 
alienation was forbidden by her unconquerable in- 
terest in him and his irrepressible instinct to hold 
her mind, even if he could not chain her affections. 
Perhaps a third thing was more usual still, toler- 
ance. But for her at least neither was tolerance 
17 253 


QUISANTE 

the mood, for that is ill to build out of a mixture 
of intense admiration and scornful contempt. These 
seemed likely to be the predominant features of 
her life with her husband, sharing it so equally that 
the one could never drive out the other nor yet 
come to fair terms and, dividing the territory, live 
at peace. 

“Perhaps they will some day,” she thought, 
“ when I get old and quiet.” She was neither old 
nor quiet now, and her youth cried out against so 
poor a consolation. Then she told herself that she 
had the child, only to reproach herself, a moment 
later, with the insincere repetition of a common- 
place. The child was not enough ; had her nature 
been such as to find the child enough, she would 
certainly never have become Alexander Quisante’s 
wife. Always when she was most strongly repelled 
by him, there was in the back of her mind the feel- 
ing that it was something to be his wife. Only — 
he mustn’t be found out. The worst terror of all, 
at which her half-jesting words to Marchmont had 
hinted, came back as she murmured, “ I wish we 
had more money.” For money was necessary, as 
votes had been, and — her eyes strayed to old Fos- 
ter’s portrait on the mantelpiece. The election had 
cost a lot ; no salary was to be looked for now ; 
both by policy and by instinct Quisante was lav- 
ish ; she herself had no aptitude for small econo- 
mies. Money was wanted very much indeed in 
Grosvenor Road. 

It was on the way, though. This was the news 
254 


OPEN EYES 


that Quisante, in the interval between his return 
from electioneering and the meeting of Parliament, 
brought back day by day from his excursions to 
the City and his conversations with Mandeville. 
He was careful to explain to his wife that he was 
no “guinea-pig,” that he did not approve of the 
animal, and would never use his position to pick 
up gain in that way. But he had leisure — at least 
he could make time — and some of it he proposed 
to devote to starting a really legitimate and highly 
lucrative undertaking. The Alethea Printing Press 
was to revolutionise a great many things besides 
the condition of Quisant^’s finances ; it was not an 
ordinary speculative company. Marchmont’s phrase 
came in here, and May used it neatly and gracious- 
ly. Quisante, much encouraged, plunged into an 
account of the great invention ; if only it worked 
as it was certain to work, there was not one for- 
tune but many fortunes in it. “ And it will work ? ” 
she asked. “ If we can get the capital,” he an- 
swered with a confident air. “ I shall try to in- 
terest all my friends in it,” he went on. “ You can 
help me there.” May looked doubtful, and Qui- 
sante grew more eloquent. At last he held up a 
sheaf of papers, saying triumphantly, 

“ Here are favourable reports from all the lead- 
ing experts. We shall have an array of them in 
the prospectus. Of course they’re absolutely im- 
partial, and they really leave no room for doubt.” 
He held them out to her, but she leant back with 
her hands in her lap. 


355 


QUISANTfi 

“ I shouldn’t understand them,” she protested. 
“ But they all agree, do they ? ” 

“Yes, all,” he said emphatically. “Well, all 
except one.” His brow wrinkled a little. “ Man- 
deville insisted on having an opinion from Pro- 
fessor Maturin. I was against it. Maturin’s ab- 
surdly pessimistic.” 

“ He’s a great man, isn’t he ? ” 

“ Oh, yes, I suppose so, — he’s got a great repu- 
tation anyhow.” 

“ And he’s against you? ” 

“The fact is that his is only — only a draft re- 
port. So far as it goes, it’s not encouraging, but 
he’s never had the facts really laid before him.” 

“You’d better go and lay them before him,” she 
said very gravely. 

Quisante caught eagerly at the suggestion. 

“ Exactly what I proposed to Mandeville ! ” he 
cried. “ The prospectus won’t be out for nearly 
a month yet, and I shall go and see Maturin. I 
know — ” He rose and began to walk about. 
“ I know Maturin is wrong, and I know that I 
can show him he’s wrong. I only want an hour 
with him to bring him round to my view, to the 
true view.” 

“ W ell, why haven’t you been to see him ? ” 

“I tried to go, but he’s ill and not equal to 
business. As soon as he gets better I shall go. 
To put his report in as it stands would not only do 
us infinite harm — in fact we couldn’t think of it — 
but it wouldn’t be just to him.” 

256 


OPEN EYES 


“ But if he won’t change his opinion? * 

“ Oh, he must, he will. I tell you it’s as plain 
as a pikestaff, when once it’s properly explained.” 

“ I’m sure you’ll be able to convert him, if any- 
one can,” said May soothingly. 

“ I must,” said Quisante briefly, and sat down to 
his papers again. 

For an hour or two he worked steadily, without 
a pause, without an apparent hesitation. That 
fine machine of his was ploughing its straight un- 
faltering way through details previously unfamiliar 
and through problems which he had never studied. 
From five to seven she sat with a book in her 
hands, feigning to read, really watching her hus- 
band. He could not fail, she said to herself; he 
would make the Alethea Printing Press a success, 
irrespective of the actual merits of it. Was that 
possible ? It seemed almost possible as she looked 
at him. 

“It’s bound to go,” he said at last, pushing 
away the papers. “ I’m primed now, and I can 
convince old Maturin in half an hour.” He held 
up the Professor’s report. “He must withdraw 
this and give us another.” 

Alas, there are things before which even will 
and energy and brains must bow. As he spoke 
the servant came in, bringing the Evening Stand- 
ard . May took it, glanced at the middle page, 
and then, with a little start, looked across at her 
husband. He saw her glance. “Any news?” he 
asked. 


257 


QUISANTE 

“ The Professor can’t be convinced,” she said. 
“ His illness took a sudden turn for the worse last 
night and he died this afternoon at three o’clock.” 

Quisante sat quite still for a few minutes, the 
dead Professor’s report on the Alethea Printing 
Press still in his fingers. 

“ What’ll you do now ? ” she asked, with the 
smile of curiosity which she always had ready for 
his plans. Would he pursue the Professor beyond 
Charon’s stream ? 

He hesitated a little, glancing at her rather un- 
easily. At last he spoke. 

“ One thing at all events is clear to me,” he said. 
“ This thing doesn’t represent a reasoned and well- 
informed opinion.” He folded it up carefully and 
placed it by itself in a long envelope. “We must 
consider our course,” he ended. 

In a flash, by an instinct, May knew what their 
course would be and at whose dictation it would 
be followed. 

“ Of course,” said Quisante, “all this is strictly 
between ourselves.” 

Her cheek flushed a little. “ You mustn’t tell 
me any more business secrets. I don’t like them, ” 
said she, and she turned away to escape the quick, 
would-be covert glance that she knew he would 
direct at her. 

Money was necessary; votes had been neces- 
sary; old Foster smiled in fat shrewdness from the 
mantelpiece. May Quisantd was less sure that she 
knew the worst. 


258 


CHAPTER XV 


A STRANGE IDEA 

The next few weeks were a time of restless ac- 
tivity with Alexander Quisante. Again he was like 
an electric current, not travelling now from constitu- 
ency to constituency, but between Westminster and 
his cousin Mandeville’s offices in the City. In both 
places he was very busy. His leader had declared 
for a waiting policy, and an interval in which the 
demoralisation of defeat should pass away; the 
party must feel its feet again, the great man said. 
Constantine Blair was full of precedents for the 
course, quoting Lord Melbourne, Sir Robert Peel, 
Sir James Graham, and all the gods of the Par- 
liamentarian. Brusquely and almost rudely Qui- 
sante brushed him, his gods, and his leader on one 
side, and raised the standard of fierce and imme- 
diate battle. The majority was composite; his 
quick eye saw the spot where a wedge might be in- 
serted between the two component parts and driven 
home till the gap yawned wide and scission threat- 
ened. The fighting men needed only to be shown 
where to fight ; they followed enthusiastically the 
man who led them to the field. Leaders shook 
grey heads, and leader-writers disclaimed a respon- 
sibility which prima facie had never rested on them ; 
Quisante was told that he would wreck the party 
259 


QUISANTE 

for a quarter of a century to come. It would per- 
haps have been possible to meet Constantine Blair’s 
precedents with other precedents, to quote newer 
gods against his established deities. That was not 
“ Sandro’s way ” ; here again he was content to be 
an ancestor, the originator of his methods, and the 
sufficient authority for them. 

He was justified. The spirit of his fighting men 
ran high, and his fighting men’s wives grew gracious 
to him. The majority, if they scowled at him (as was 
only to be hoped), began to scowl furtively at one 
another also and to say that certain questions, on 
which they were by no means of one mind, could 
not permanently be shirked and kept in the back- 
ground. Some of them asked what their constitu- 
ents had sent them to Westminster for, a question 
always indicative of perturbation in the parliamen- 
tary mind ; in quiet times it is not raised. The 
Government papers took to observing that they 
did not desire to hurry or embarrass the Govern- 
ment, but that time was running on and it would 
be no true friendship to advise it to ignore the feel- 
ing which existed among an important, if numeri- 
cally small, section of its followers. Altogether 
at the opening of the session the majority was 
much less happy, the minority in far finer feather, 
than anybody had expected. Only officialdom or 
ignorance could refuse the main credit to Alexan- 
der Quisantd 

“ I declare,” said Lady Castlefort — and her opin- 
ion was not one to neglect — “ May Gaston was 
260 


A STRANGE IDEA 


right to take the man after all. He’ll be Prime 
Minister.” And she settled her pince-nez and 
looked round for contradiction. She loved argu- 
ment, but had made the mistake of growing too 
important to be differed from. None the less on 
this occasion a sweet little voice spoke up in the 
circle. 

46 1 wouldn’t marry him if he were fifty times 
Prime Minister,” said Lady Richard Benyon. 
44 He’s odious.” 

44 God bless me ! ” murmured the Countess, 
genuinely startled. 44 Well, you’ll see, my dear,” 
she went on, nodding emphatically. 44 He’s the 
only man among them.” Her eye fell on Weston 
Marchmont. 44 Oh, yes, I see you’re there,” she 
said, “and I’m very glad you should be.” 

44 It’s always a pleasure to be here,” he smiled 
urbanely. 

44 Especially, apparently, when you ought to 
be at the House,” she retorted, glancing at the 
clock. 44 However, to-day you’ve heard more 
truth here than you’re likely to there, so I forgive 
you.” 

44 More truth here ? But Quisant^’s making a 
speech ! ” 

44 Oh, you’re very neat,” she said with an open 
impatience. 44 You can score off a woman at her 
tea-table ; go and score off the other side, Weston, 
and then you may do it as much as you like to me. 
As if anybody cared whether Mr. Quisant^ speaks 
the truth or not ! ” He came up to her and held 
261 


QUISANTE 

out his hand, smiling good-naturedly. She gave 
him hers with a laugh, for she liked him much and 
did not like Quisante at all. “ It’s your own fault, 
that’s why you’re so exasperating,” she half-whis- 
pered as she bade him good-bye. 

Here was one side; on the other the men of 
the City came to know Quisante too, but, as be- 
fitted persons engaged in the serious pursuit of 
dealing with money, gave more hesitating and 
guarded opinions ; no party spirit led them astray 
or fired them to desperate ventures. However, 
there was no denying that the Alethea Printing 
Press sounded a very good thing, and moreover no 
denying that measures had been skilfully taken to 
prevent anybody having a share in that good thing 
without paying handsomely for the privilege. The 
Syndicate, speaking through Mr. Mandeville, its 
mouthpiece, by no means implored support or can- 
vassed new partners ; it was prepared to admit one 
or two names of weight in return for substantial aid. 
Mandeville did nothing of himself; he referred to 
the Board, and the Board’s answers came after Alex- 
ander Quisante’s hansom had flashed back to West- 
minster. But a few did gain admittance, and these 
few were much struck by the reports on the Alethea, 
all of which had been sent back for revision to their 
respective authors, accompanied by some new and 
important facts. These latter did not, as it turned 
out, alter the tenor of the reports, but it had been 
thought as well to afford an opportunity for re- 
consideration in the light of them; so Mandeville 
262 


A STRANGE IDEA 


explained, seeming always just a little nervous over 
this matter of the reports. 

“We had hoped,” he said to one gentleman who 
was rather important and rather hard to satisfy, “ to 
fortify ourselves with Professor Maturing opinion. 
But unfortunately he died before he could complete 
his examination, and nothing on the subject was 
found among his papers.” 

“That’s a pity. Maturin would have carried 
great weight.” 

“We were quite alive to that,” Mandeville as- 
sured him with a somewhat uneasy smile. His 
feelings were not unlike those of a quiet steady- 
going member of Quisante’s party in Parliament. 
“We have no doubt of what his opinion would 
have been, had he been able to study our additional 
facts and been spared to complete his report. As 
it was, he had only discussed the matter informally 
with one or two of us.” And when he was left 
alone, he murmured softly, “ I suppose that’s how 
Alexander meant me to put it.” But he rather 
wished that Alexander had been there to put it 
himself. 

It is perhaps needless to say that Aunt Maria, 
sturdily fulfilling her destiny in life, was deeply 
concerned in the fortunes of the Alethea Printing 
Press. But large as was her stake — and the possi- 
bilities of loss at least were for her very large — she 
was not disturbed ; she said that heaven alone knew 
whether there was anything in the thing, but that 
she knew that Sandro would make people think 
263 


QUISANTE 

there was. Nor did she share in any serious de- 
gree the fears which afflicted her nephew’s wife; 
Sandro always had a case, and she did not doubt 
that he would have a very good one whereby to 
justify any proceedings he might take in regard to 
the Alethea. So she lived frugally, hoped magnifi- 
cently, and came often to Grosvenor Road to pick 
up what crumbs of information she could. Here 
she met Lady Castlefort and nodded her rusty bon- 
net at that great personage with the remark that 
she was glad people were waking up to what there 
was in Sandro ; it was time goodness knew. Lady 
Castlefort was for the moment taken aback. 

“Mr. Quisante has had certain — er — difficulties 
to overcome,” she murmured rather vaguely, and 
was not reassured by a dry chuckle and the heart- 
felt exclamation, “ I should think so ! ” Altogether 
it was difficult to make out exactly what Mr. Qui- 
sante’s aunt thought of him. 

Here the old lady met also the Dean of St. 
Neot’s, who called every now and then because he 
liked May and wished to show that he bore no 
malice about the Crusade ; but the subject was still 
a sore one, and he was as little prepared to be 
chuckled at over it as Lady Castlefort had been 
over her diplomatic indication of the fact that Qui- 
sante’s blood was not blue nor his manners those of 
a grand old English gentleman. 

“ Sandro knew all along that there wasn’t much 
in that, but it was something to begin with,” Aunt 
Maria remarked to the uncomfortable Dean. She 
264 


A STRANGE IDEA 


herself had dragged in the Crusade, to which she 
referred so contemptuously. 

“Miss Quisante will do anything in the world 
for my husband,” May interposed, 44 but nothing’ll 
persuade her to say a good word for him.” 

4 4 As long as that’s understood, she does him no 
harm. We discount all you say, Miss Quisantd.” 

The Dean’s affability was thrown away on Aunt 
Maria. 

44 1 know what I’m talking about,” she remarked 
grimly, 44 and as far as your Crusade goes, I should 
think you’d have seen it yourself by now.” 

The Dean had seen it himself by now, but he did 
not wish to say so in the presence of Quisante’s 
wife. May’s laugh relieved him a little. 

44 The Dean’s very forgiving, ” she said, 44 and 
Alexander’s doing well now, anyhow, isn’t he ? ” 

The Dean agreed that he was doing well now — 
for in spite of his disclaimers of partisanship there 
was a spice of the fighting man in the Dean — and 
repeated Lady Castlefort’s prophecy, reported to 
him by Lady Richard. The rusty black bonnet 
nodded approvingly. 44 1 knew that was a sensible 
woman, in spite of her airs,” said Miss Quisante. 

Lastly, among those whom Miss Quisante en- 
countered at her nephew’s house was Lady Mild- 
may, and this interview took a rather more serious 
turn. In after days May used to look back to it as 
the first faint sign of the new factor which from now 
began to make itself felt in her life and to become a 
very pressing presence to her. She did not enjoy 
265 


QUISANTE 

the friendship which the Mildmays forced on her, 
but it was impossible to receive it otherwise than 
with outward graciousness ; the cordiality was so 
kind, the interest so frank, Sir Winterton’s gallantry 
so chivalrous, his wife’s gentleness so appealing. 
When Lady Mildmay was announced May found 
time for a hasty whisper to Aunt Maria : 44 Take 
care what you say about Alexander before her.” 
Doubts must not be stirred in the Mildmay mind ; 
the Mildmays must be kept in their delusion; to 
help in this was one of the duties of Quisante’s wife. 

Lady Mildmay smiled gladly on Aunt Maria. 

44 I’m so pleased you’re here,” she said, 44 because 
I know you’ll second me in what I’m going to 
venture to say to Lady May. I know I’m taking 
a liberty, but I can’t help it. Meeting people now 
and then, you do sometimes see what people who 
are always with them don’t. Now don’t you, Miss 
Quisante ? ” 

44 And vice versa,” murmured Aunt Maria ; but 
May’s eye rested on her warningly, and she refrained 
from pointing her observation by any reference to 
Sandro. 

44 I’m quite sure your husband is overdoing him- 
self terribly,” Lady Mildmay went on. 44 1 saw him 
the other day walking through the Park, and he 
looked ghastly. I stopped him and told him so, 
but he said he’d just been to his doctor, and that 
there was really nothing the matter with him.” 

44 1 didn’t know he’d been to the doctor lately. 
He seemed pretty well for him,” said May. Aunt 
266 


A STRANGE IDEA 


Maria said nothing ; her keen little eyes were 
watching the visitor very closely. 

“ I’ve seen a lot of illness,’’ pursued Lady Mild- 
may in her gentle voice, “ and I know. He’s work- 
ing himself to death ; he’s killing himself.” She 
raised her eyes and looked at May. Kind as the 
glance was, May felt in it a wonder, almost a re- 
proach. “ How comes it that you, his wife, haven’t 
seen it too ? ” the eyes seemed to say in plaintive 
surprise. “Are you sure there’s nothing wrong 
with him?” she asked. 

“Wrong with him? What do you mean?” 
The question was Aunt Maria’s, asked abruptly, 
roughly, almost indignantly. Lady Mildmay start- 
ed. “ I — I don’t want to alarm you, I’m sure,” she 
murmured, “but I don’t like his looks. Do, do 
persuade him to take a rest.” 

Both of them were silent now ; Lady Mildmay ’s 
wonder grew ; she did not understand them ; she 
saw them exchange a glance whose expression she 
could not analyse. 

“ He wants absolute rest and care, the care you 
could give him, my dear,” she said to May — such a 
care she meant as her loving heart and hands would 
give to handsome Sir Winterton. “ Go away with # 
him for a few months and take care of him, now 
do. Keep all worries and — and ambitions and so 
on away from him.” 

May’s face was grave and strained in a painful 
attention ; but on Miss Quisante’s lips there came 
slowly a bitter little smile. What a picture this 
267 


QUISANTE 

good lady drew of Sandro and his loving wife, to- 
gether, apart from the world, with ambitions and 
worries set aside ! Must the outlines of that pic- 
ture be followed if — well, if Sandro was to live? 

“ I hope you’re not offended ? Seeing him only 
now and then I notice the change. Winterton and 
I have both been feeling anxious about it, and we 
decided that you wouldn’t mind if I spoke to you.” 

“You’re too good, too good,” said May. “We 
don’t deserve it. ” Lady Mildmay smiled. 

“I know what a strain the election was,” said 
she. “ Even Winterton felt it, and Mr. Quisante 
never seems to rest, does he ? ” She rose to go, 
but, as she said good-bye, she spoke one more 
word, half in a whisper and timidly, “I daresay 
I’m wrong, but are you sure his heart’s quite 
sound?” And so she left them, excusing herself 
to the last for what might seem an intrusion, or 
even a slight on the careful watch that an affection- 
ate wife keeps over her husband’s health. 

May walked to the hearthrug and stood there; 
Aunt Maria, sitting very still, glanced up with a 
frightened gaze, but her speech came bitter with 
aggressive scorn. 

“ What does the silly creature mean ?” she asked. 
“ There’s nothing the matter with Sandro, is there ? ” 

“I don’t know that there is,” May answered 
slowly. 

“ The woman talks as if he was going to die.” 
Still the tone was contemptuous, still the look 
frightened. “ Such nonsense ! ’ ’ 

268 


A STRANGE IDEA 


“ I hope it is. He’s not strong though, is he?” 

Miss Quisante had often said the same, but now 
she received the remark irritably. “ Strong ! He’s 
not a buffalo like some men, like Jimmy Benyon 
or, I suppose, that poor creature’s husband she’s 
always talking about. But there’s nothing the 
matter with him, there’s no reason he shouldn’t — 
no reason he should fall ill at all.” 

e< She thinks he ought to rest, perhaps give up 
altogether.” 

“Altogether? Nonsense!” The tone was sharp. 

“Well, then, for a long while.” 

“And go away, and let you coddle him ?” 

“Yes, and let me coddle him.” May looked 
down on Aunt Maria, and for the first time smiled 
faintly. 

“ The woman’s out of her senses,” declared Aunt 
Maria testily. “ Don’t you think so ? Don’t you 
think so ? ” 

“ I don’t know,” was all May could say in answer 
either to the irritation of the voice or to the fear of 
the eyes. The old lady’s hands were trembling as 
she raised them and gave a pull to the bow of her 
bonnet- strings. 

“ He’ll see me out anyhow, I’ll be bound,” she 
said obstinately. She was fighting against the bare 
idea of being left with a remnant of life to live and 
no Sandro to fill it for her ; what a miserable fag- 
end of empty waiting that would be ! She glanced 
sharply at his wife ; she did not know what his wife 
was thinking of. 

18 


269 


QUISANTE 

44 I’ll ask him,” said May, 44 and I must insist on 
knowing.” She paused and added, 44 1 ought to 
have noticed and I ought to have asked before. 
But somehow — ” The sentence went unfinished, 
and Aunt Maria’s sharp unsatisfied eyes drew no 
further answer. May kissed her when they parted ; 
whatever this idea might mean to her, whatever the 
strange tumult it might raise in her, she read well 
enough the story of the old lady’s rough tones, 
shaking hands and frightened eyes. To the old 
woman Sandro was the sum of life. She might 
sneer, she might scorn, she might rail, she might 
and would suffer at his hands. But he was the one 
thing, the sole support, she had to cling to ; he kept 
her alive. Yet the last words that Miss Quisante 
said were, 44 1 expect Sandro wanted to wheedle 
something out of that woman, and has been playing 
one of his tricks to get a bit of sympathy.” Then 
she climbed slowly and totteringly down the stairs. 

Left alone, May Quisante sat in apparent idle- 
ness, letting her thoughts play with a freedom 
which some people consider in itself blameworthy, 
though certainly no action and often no desire ac- 
company the picture which the mind draws. She 
said to herself, 44 Supposing this is true, or that 
more than this is true, supposing his heart is un- 
sound, what does it mean to me ? ’ ’ What it ex- 
cluded was easier to realise than what it meant. 
Unless Quisante were to have not existence only, 
but also health, such health at least as enables a 
man to do work although not, maybe, to glory in 
270 


A STRANGE IDEA 


the doing of it, unless there were to the engine 
wheels sound enough to answer to the spur of the 
steam that his brain’s furnace made, nothing could 
come about of what Lady Castlefort’s Mightiness 
prophesied, nothing of what friends and enemies 
had begun to look for, nothing of what May herself 
had grown to regard as his future and hers, as the 
basis, the condition, the circumstances, of her life 
and of his. An old thought of her own came to 
her, back from the dim region of ante- marriage 
days, the idea to which the Henstead doctor had 
given a terse, if metaphorical, expression. Qui- 
sante was their race-horse, their money was on him, 
they wanted a win for the stable. If this or more 
than this were true, then there would be no win 
for the stable ; the horse was a grand horse, but he 
wouldn’t stand training. What was left then ? An 
invalid and the wife of an invalid, coddlings, cosset- 
ings, devotion, ambition far away, life kept in him 
by loving heart and loving hands. Hers must be 
the heart and the hands. Hers also were the keen 
eyes that knew every weakness, every baseness, of 
the man to whom heart and hands must minister, 
but would see no more the battle and the triumph 
and the brilliance which set them sparkling and 
seemed to make the world alight for them. 

For a little while the third thing, the remaining 
possibility, was unformulated in her thoughts ; per- 
haps she had a scruple which made her turn away 
from it. But her speculations would not be denied 
their irresponsible freedom of ranging over all the 
271 


QUISANTE 

field of chance. If it were true, if more than it, 
more than the kind timid woman had dared to say, 
were true, he might die. He might die, not in some 
dim far-off time when nature made the thing seem 
inevitable, w T hen he had lived his life, been Prime 
Minister and so forth, and she had lived hers, fill- 
ing it with work for him, and with looking on at 
him and with endurance of him, but sooner, much 
sooner, almost now, when he had not lived his life, 
while hers was not exhausted, when there would 
still be left to her another of her own to live after 
he was gone. It was strange to think of that, to 
see how what had seemed to be irrevocable and for 
ever, to stretch in unfaltering perpetuity to the lim- 
its of old age, might so easily, by the occasion of so 
small a matter as a heart not sound, turn out to be 
a passing thing, and there come to her again free- 
dom, choice, a life to be re-made. If that happened, 
how would she feel? At the new-learnt chance of 
that happening, how did she feel? Very strange, 
very bewildered, very upset ; that was her answer. 
Such a thing — Quisante’s death she meant — would 
mean so much, change so much, take away so much 
— and might give so much. Her thoughts flew off 
to the new life that she might live then, to the new 
freedom from embarrassments, from fears and from 
disgusts, to a new love which it might be hers to gain 
and to enjoy. People said that it was always im- 
possible to go back — vestigia nulla . But that event 
would open to her a sort of going back, such a re- 
turn to her old life and her surroundings as might 


A STRANGE IDEA 

some day make the time she had spent with Qui- 
sante and its experiences seem but an episode, stud- 
ding the belt of long days with one strange bizarre 
ornament. 

And on the other side? There was the greatest 
difficulty, the greatest puzzle. She had not failed 
to understand the roughness of Aunt Maria’s tones, 
her frightened eyes and the shaking of her hands. 
It would be very strange to see an end of him, to 
know that he would never be Prime Minister and 
so forth, to look on at a world devoid of him, to 
live a life in which he was only a memory. How 
were the scales to be held, which way did the bal- 
ance incline ? She could not tell, and at last she 
smiled at her inability to answer the riddle. It 
would amuse people so much, and shock some peo- 
ple so much and doubtless so properly, if they knew 
that she was sitting in her drawing-room in the 
afternoon, trying to make up her mind whether she 
would rather her husband lived or that he died. 
Even there the fallacy crept in ; she was not desir- 
ing either way ; she was simply looking at the two 
pictures which the two events painted for her fancy ; 
and she did not know which picture she preferred. 
So all was still bewilderment, all still rocking from 
the sudden gust that had proceeded out of dear 
Lady Mildmay’s gentle lips. But the undercurrent 
of wonder and of reproach that there had been in 
the warning May Quisante now almost missed. By 
an effort at last she realised its presence, the natu- 
ralness of it, and its rightness. But still it seemed 
273 


QU1SANTE 

to her a little conventional, something that might 
be supposed to be appropriate, but was not, if the 
truth were faced. “ Alexander and I have never 
been like that to one another — at least never for 
more than a very little while,” was the form her 
thought about it took. 

When he came in that evening, she found herself 
looking at him with wonder, and with a sort of 
scepticism about what her visitor had said. He 
seemed so full of life ; it was impossible to think of 
him as being likely, or even able, to die. But she 
had made up her mind to open the subject to him, 
to force something from him, and to learn about 
this visit to the doctor which he had so studiously 
concealed from her. She gave him tea, and was so 
far affected by her mood as to show unusual kind- 
ness towards him, or rather to let her uniform 
friendliness be tinged by an affection which was not 
part of her habitual bearing ; with the help of this 
she hoped to lead up to a subject which her own 
strangely mixed meditations somehow made it hard 
for her to approach. But Quisante also had a 
scheme ; he also was watching and working for an 
opportunity, and seeing one now in her great cor- 
diality of manner he seized it with his rapid de- 
cisiveness, cutting in before his wife had time to 
develop her attack. He pressed her hand as she 
gave him his cup, sighed as though in weariness, 
took a paper from his pocket, and laid it on the 
table, giving it a tentative gentle push in the direc- 
tion of her chair. 


274 


A STRANGE IDEA 


“ We’ve got the Alethea afloat at last,” he said. 
“ There’s the prospectus, if you care to look at it.* 
With this he glanced at the clock, sighed again and 
added, “ I must be at the House early this evening. 
By Jove, I’m tired though ! ” This little odd in- 
eradicable trick of his made May smile; he was 
never so tired as when he had a risky card to play; 
then, indeed, he affected for his purposes some sort 
of reconcilability with those incongruous ideas of 
collapse and mortality that Lady Mildmay had 
suggested. He inspired May, as he did sometimes 
now, with a malicious wish to make him show him- 
self at his trickiest. Fingering the prospectus care- 
lessly, she asked, 

“ I suppose it sets out all the wonderful merits of 
the Alethea, doesn’t it? Well, I’ve heard a good 
deal about them. I don’t think I need read it.” 

“ It gives a full account of the invention,” said 
Quisante, wearily passing his hand across his brow. 

“Have you put in Professor Maturin’s report?” 
She was not looking at him, but smiling over to 
Mr. Foster on the mantelpiece. There was a mo- 
ment’s pause. 

“ The facts about Maturin are fully stated. 
You’ll find it on the third page.” He rose with a 
sigh and threw himself on the sofa; he groaned a 
little and shut his eyes. May glanced at him, 
smiled, and turned to the third page. 

“ In addition to the foregoing very authoritative 
opinions, steps were taken to obtain a report from 
the late Professor Maturin, F.R.S. Professor Ma- 
275 


QUISANTE 

turin was very favourably impressed with several 
features of the invention, and was about to pursue 
his investigations with the aid of further informa- 
tion furnished to him, when he was unfortunately 
attacked by the illness of which he recently died. 
The Directors therefore regret to be unable to pre- 
sent any report of his examination. But they have 
every reason to believe that his opinion would have 
been no less encouraging than those' of the other 
gentlemen consulted.” 

May turned back to the list of directors. Three 
out of the six she did not know ; the other three 
were Quisante himself, Jimmy Benyon, and Sir 
Winterton Mildmay. The presence of these two 
last names filled May with a feeling of helplessness ; 
this was worse than she had expected. Of course 
neither Jimmy nor Sir Winterton had heard any- 
thing about the Maturin report ; of the other three 
she knew nothing and took no thought. Jimmy, 
not warned, alas, by that affair of old Foster’s note, 
and Sir Winterton, in the chivalrous confidence of 
perfect trust, had given their support to Quisante. 
The use he made of their names was to attach them 
to a statement which she who knew of the Ma- 
turin report could describe only in one way. She 
looked round at her husband’s pale face and closed 
eyes. 

“ I thought you were supposed to tell the — I 
mean, to state all the facts in a prospectus ? ” she 
said. 

Quisante sat up suddenly, leant forward, and 
276 


A STRANGE IDEA 


spread his hands out. “ My dear May,” he replied 
with a smile, “ the facts are stated, stated very 
fully.” 

“ There’s nothing about the report the Professor 
did give. You remember you told me about it ? ” 

“ Oh, no, he gave no report.” 

“ Well, you called it a draft report.” 

“No, no, did I? That was a careless way of 
speaking if I did. He certainly sent me some con- 
siderations which had occurred to him at the be- 
ginning of his inquiry, but they were based on in- 
sufficient information and were purely provisional. 
They did not in any sense constitute a report. It 
would have been positively misleading to speak of 
them in any such way.” He was growing eager, 
animated, almost excited. 

May was not inclined to cross-examine him ; she 
knew that he would develop his case for himself if 
she sat and listened. 

“ The whole thing was so inchoate as to be worth 
nothing,” he went on. “We simply discarded it 
from our minds ; we didn’t let it weigh one way or 
the other.” 

“ The directors didn’t? ” That little question she 
could not resist asking. 

“ Oh, it was never laid before them. As I tell 
you, Mandeville and I decided that it could not be 
regarded as a report, or even as an indication of 
Maturin’s opinion. We only referred to Maturin 
at all because — because we wanted to be absolutely 
candid.” 


277 


QUISANTE 

May smiled; absolute candour resulted, as it 
seemed to her, in giving rise to an impression that 
the Professor had been in favour of the merits of 
the Alethea. 

“ And you won’t show it to the directors ? ” 

“ No,” said Quisante, “ certainly not.” He paused 
for a moment and then added slowly, “ In fact it 
has not been preserved. What is stated there is 
based on my own personal discussions with the 
Professor, and on Mandeville’s ; the few lines he 
wrote added nothing.” 

It had not been preserved ; it had sunk from a 
report to a draft report, from a draft report to con- 
siderations, from considerations to a few lines which 
added nothing ; the minimising process, pursued a 
little further, had ended in a total disappearance. 
And nobody knew that it had ever existed, even 
as considerations, even as a few lines adding noth- 
ing, except her husband, cousin Mandeville, and 
herself. 

“ If the Professor himself,” Quisante resumed, 
“ had considered it of any moment, he would have 
kept a copy or some memorandum of it ; but there 
was not a word about it among his papers.” 

There was safety, then, so far as the Professor 
was concerned ; and so far as Quisante was con- 
cerned; of course, also, so far as cousin Mandeville 
was concerned. But Quisante’s restless eyes seemed 
to ask whether there were perfect safety all round, 
no possibility of Jimmy or Sir Winterton or any- 
body else picking up false ideas from careless talk 
278 


A STRANGE IDEA 

about the few lines in which the Professor had 
added nothing. For an instant May’s eyes met 
his, and she understood what he asked of her. She 
was to hold her tongue ; that sounded simple. She 
had held her tongue before, and thus it happened 
that Sir W interton was her husband’s friend and 
trusted him. Now she was again to be a party to 
deceiving him, and this time Jimmy Benyon was to 
be hoodwinked too. She was to hold her tongue ; 
if by any chance need arose, she was to lie. That 
was the request Quisante made of her, part of the 
price of being Quisante’s wife. 

She gave him no pledge in words; a touch of 
the tact that taught him how to deal with difficult 
points prevented him from asking one of her. 
But it was quite understood between them; no 
reference was to be made to the few lines that the 
Professor had written. Quisante’s uneasiness passed 
away, his headache seemed to become less severe ; 
he was in good spirits as he made his preparations 
to go to the House. Apparently he had no con- 
sciousness of having asked anything great of her. 
He had been far more nervous and shamefaced 
about his betrayal of the Crusade, far more upset 
by the untoward incident of Mr. Foster’s letter. 
May told herself that she understood why ; he was 
getting accustomed to her and she to him; he 
knew her point of view and allowed for it, expect- 
ing a similar toleration in return. As she put it, 
they were getting equalised, approaching more 
nearly to one another’s level. You could not aid 
279 


QUISANTE 

in queer doings and reap the fruits of them with- 
out suffering some gradual subtle moral change 
which must end in making them seem less queer. 
As the years passed by, the longer their com- 
panionship lasted, the more their partnership de- 
manded in its community of interest and effort, 
the more this process must go on. As they rose 
before the world — for rise they would (even the 
Alethea would succeed in spite of the Professor’s 
burked report) — they would fall in their own hearts 
and in one another’s eyes. This was the prospect 
that stretched before her, as she sat again alone in 
the drawing-room, after Quisant^ had set out, 
much better, greatly rested, in good spirits, serene 
and safe, and after she had pledged herself to his 
fortunes by the sacrifice of loyalty to friends and 
to truth. 

Yes, that was the prospect unless — she started a 
little. She had forgotten what she had meant to 
ask him; she had not inquired about his visit to 
the doctor nor told him that kind Lady Mildmay 
was anxious about his health. It had all been 
driven out of her head, she said to herself in ex- 
cuse at first. Then she faced her feelings more 
boldly. Just then she could have put no such 
questions, feigned no such interest, and assumed 
no show of affection or solicitude. That evening 
such things would have been mere hypocrisy, pre- 
tences of a desire to keep him for herself when her 
whole nature was in revolt at having to be near 
him. Her horror now was not that she might lose 
280 


A STRANGE IDEA 


him, but of the prospect that lay before her and 
the road she must tread with him. Trodden it 
must be ; unless by any chance there were truth, 
or less than the truth, in what good Lady Mild- 
may said. 


281 


CHAPTER XVI 


THE IRREVOCABLE 

So far as May Quisantd’s distress had its rise in 
her husband’s treatment of Sir Winterton Mild- 
may, she was entitled to take some comfort from 
that gentleman’s extreme happiness. He had lost 
a seat in Parliament, thanks to Tom Sinnett and 
the account to which Tom Sinnett had been 
turned; he had been caused to represent to the 
world that the Alethea Printing Press had lost 
Professor Maturin’s express approval only by the 
accident of the Professor’s lamented decease. The 
one wrong he forgot, the other he did not know. 
It was a favourite tenet of his that an English 
gentleman ought to be able to turn his hand to 
everything — everything honourable, of course — 
and should at once shine in any sphere of practical 
activity. He saw the triumph of his opinion, and 
found his own delight, in his new part of a business 
man. His brougham rolled down to Dowgate Hill 
almost every day; he delighted to lunch with Man- 
deville or to entertain the Secretary of the Com- 
pany at the midday meal ; business could be made 
to last till three when there was no Board, till four 
if there were ; then Sir Winterton drove to his 
club and sat down to his cards with a rich con- 
sciousness of commercial importance. He believed 
282 


THE IRREVOCABLE 


in the Alethea with a devotion and a thoroughness 
second only to the unquestioning faith and obedi- 
ence which he now had at the service of Alexander 
Quisante. Many an amazed secret stare and many 
a sour smile his eulogies drew from cousin Mande- 
ville ; for even in his enthusiasm Sir Winterton 
praised with discrimination; it was the sterling 
worth, the heart of the man, that he admired ; 
shallow people stuck at superficial defects of man- 
ner ; not such was Sir Winterton. “ I trust him 
as I do myself,” he used to say to Lady Mildmay, 
and she, in honest joy, posted off with the testi- 
monial to May Quisante ; besides she was eager to 
seize a chance of throwing out another hint or two 
about Quisante ’s health. 

The Alethea, at least, seemed to be going to 
prove worthy of these laudations. There really 
had, it appeared, been some good reason why the 
Professor should reconsider his considerations. 
The invention stood the test of criticism and ex- 
periment ; it saved a lot of expense ; the idea got 
about more and more that it was an uncommonly 
good thing; the two or three papers which were 
inquisitive about the actual views of the Professor 
were treated with disdain (one with advertisements 
also) and their clamour went almost unnoticed. 
There was a demand for the shares. Sir Winter- 
ton pointed out to Weston Marchmont what a 
mistake he had committed in not accepting the 
offer of an allotment which had been made to him. 

“ The only thing for which I value independent 
283 


QUISANTE 


means,” said Marchmont, 44 is that they relieve me 
from the necessity of imposing on the public. I 
suppose my ancestors did it for me.” 

Sir Winterton laughed serenely. “ W e’re serving 
the public,” said he. Then he remembered the new 
man of business in him, and added, with a slyness 
obvious from across the street, 44 Oh, and ourselves 
too, ourselves too, I admit that.” 

44 And you, Jimmy ? ” asked Marchmont, turning 
to him ; they made a group of three at the club. 

“ I don’t think Quisante’ll go far wrong,” said 
Jimmy. 44 You know Dick’s gone in too ? ” 

44 What, after the Crusade ? ” 

64 This is another sort of game,” said Jimmy, with 
a grim smile ; he had gone in after both the Cru- 
sade and the Sinnett affair. He turned to Sir 
Winterton ; 44 Old Foster of Henstead’s in it too ; 
he’s pretty wide-awake, you know.” 

44 Oh, we Henstead fellows have heads on our 
shoulders,” said Sir Winterton, but he looked a 
little less happy; he had never acquitted Foster 
with the confidence that Quisante had won from 
him. 

44 And you’ll grow rich against your wedding, 
Jimmy ? ” asked Marchmont. 

Again Jimmy smiled. The wedding was near 
now, and the next day he was going to Ashwood 
to meet Fanny Gaston. 

44 You’re going to Dick’s on Friday, aren’t you ? ” 
he said to Marchmont. 

44 1 believe I am.” 


284 


THE IRREVOCABLE 


“ Ah, then you shall hear about our show from 
Quisante himself.” 

44 What ? ” W eston Marchmont’s tone expressed 
surprise rather than pleasure. 

44 May’s going to be there, and he’s coming for 
the Sunday. Amy fought hard, but Dick said he 
must come, because he was going to be a connec- 
tion.” Jimmy’s slow smile endured all through this 
speech ; he had a sense of humour which he treated 
gravely. 

44 1 didn’t know he was coming,” said March- 
mont. Sir Winterton broke into a hearty laugh. 

44 You’re the most prejudiced fellow in the world, 
Marchmont,” he said. 44 1 tell you what, though,” 
he went on. 44 Do persuade Lady May to take care 
of her husband, or get him to take care of himself. 
My wife’s been at her again and again, but nothing’s 
done. The man’s not well, he’ll break up if they 
aren’t careful.” He paused, and a puzzled look 
came over his handsome candid face. 44 If I was 
half as bad as he is, my wife’d have me in bed or off 
to the seaside in a jiffy,” he ended. 

The silence that followed struck him much as 
May’s and Aunt Maria’s had struck his wife. 
Neither he nor his wife were accustomed to the way 
in which people who knew Quisante close at hand 
came to stand towards him. 

44 1 suppose Lady May’s not what you’d call a 
very domestic woman ?” he hazarded. 44 Charming, 
most charming, but full of politics and that sort of 
thing, eh ? 

19 


285 


QUISANTE 

To Weston Marchmont it seemed simplest to 
laugh and say, “ I suppose so.” Sir Winterton’s 
mind had need of categories, and was best not bur- 
dened with the complexities of an individual. But 
Jimmy was not so wise. 

“ I don’t think she cares a hang about politics, 
except so far as Quisante’s concerned in them,” he 
said. 

Sir W interton looked more puzzled still. “ N oth- 
ing’s any good unless he keeps his health,” he mur- 
mured. He was uncomfortable ; he liked May 
very much, and did not welcome the thought of 
there being any truth in the idea of indifference 
and carelessness about her husband at which Lady 
Mildmay had sorrowfully hinted. “ That’s his 
wife’s first business anyhow,” he ended, a trifle de- 
fiantly. But his challenge was not taken up by 
either of his friends. He went home with his high 
spirits rather dashed. 

On the Friday Marchmont found himself travel- 
ling down to Ashwood in company with Mr. More- 
wood. The painter had an extreme fit of his mock- 
ing acidity; he refrained his tongue from nobody 
and showed no respect for what might be guessed 
to be delicate points with his companion. Qui- 
sante’s success was his principal theme ; he exhib- 
ited it in its four aspects, political, social, com- 
mercial, and matrimonial. 

“ I’ve talked,” he said, “ to Constantine Blair, to 
Lady Castlefort, to Winterton Mildmay, and to 
Jimmy Benyon. There’s nothing left for all of us 
286 


THE IRREVOCABLE 


but to fall down and worship. On to your knees 
with the rest of us, my friend ! In every relation 
of life the man is great. You’ll say he’s objection- 
able. Quite so. Greatness always is. You’re still 
pleasant, because you haven’t become great.” 

“ A few people think you a great artist.” 

“ Quite a few,” grinned Morewood. “ I can still 
set up for being pleasant.” 

This mood did not leave him with his arrival at 
Ash wood. He reminded Marchmont of a monkey 
who had some trick to play, and grinned and chat- 
tered in anticipation of his cruel fun ; his smile was 
most mocking when he greeted May Quisantd 
She was in high spirits ; girlish gaiety marked a 
holiday mood in her. Morewood seemed to en- 
courage it with malicious care, letting it grow that 
he might strike at it with better effect later on. 
Yet what did the man know, what could he do? 
And though Dick Benyon winced at his darts, and 
Jimmy grew a little sulky, May herself seemed un- 
conscious of them. She was ready to meet him in 
talk about her husband and her husband’s plans ; 
she laughed at his jibes in all the apparent security 
of a happy confidence. Such a state of things 
exactly suited Lady Richard ; she would not wish 
May to be pained, but she enjoyed infinitely any 
legitimate “ dig ” at her old enemy. May fought 
with equal gallantry and good temper. 

“ Success is our crime,” she said gaily at dinner. 
“Mr. Morewood can’t forgive it. You call us 
Philistines now, I expect, don’t you ? ” 

287 


QUISANTE 

“Philistines in the very highest degree,” he 
nodded. 

“ I know,” she cried. “ The only really culti- 
vated thing is to fail elegantly.” 

“Lets bow our acknowledgments,” Morewood 
called across to Marchmont. 

“Oh, no, Mr. Marchmont isn’t like that. He 
doesn’t even try. Well, perhaps that’s still more 
superior.” She smiled at Marchmont, shaking her 
head. “ But we try, we try everything.” 

The “ we ” grated still on Marchmont’s feelings, 
and the worse because it seemed to come more 
easily and naturally from her lips. Yet that might 
be only the result of practice; she had looked at him 
in a merry defiance as the last words left her lips. 

“ And you get other people to try your things 
too,” pursued Morewood. 

“ Look here, you don’t mean me, do you ? ” 
Jimmy Benyon put in. “ Because I’m not trying 
Fanny; on the contrary, she’s trying me.” 

4 4 What, already ? ” asked Dick with exaggerated 
apprehension. “ What’ll it be when you’re mar- 
ried ? ” 

“Ah,” said Morewood, “now what is it when 
you’re married ? Does any duly qualified person 
wish to answer the question ? ” His mischievous 
glance rested again on May Quisante. 

“ Oh, marriage is all right,” said Dick, raising 
his voice to allow his wife to hear. “ At least it’s 
not so bad as things go in this world. It’s giving 
a shilling and getting back eleven-pence.” 

288 


THE IRREVOCABLE 


There was a little murmur of applause. “ I de- 
clare every married person at the table seems to en- 
dorse the opinion,” said Marchmont with a laugh. 
“ We’ll keep our shillings, I think, Morewood.” 

“ You’d better wait till somebody offers you 
change,” advised Lady Richard. 

“ Meanwhile we’ve had an admirable expert 
opinion,” said Marchmont. 

“ Which we believe,” added Morewood, “ as im- 
plicitly as we do in the excellence of the Alethea 
Printing Press.” 

“ Hallo, are you in it too ? ” cried Dick. “You 
see we’re all disciples,” he added to May. She 
smiled slightly and turned to Jimmy Benyon who 
was by her, as though to speak to him ; but More- 
wood’s voice cut across her remark. 

“ No, I’m not. I’m a sceptic there,” he said. 

“Oh, well, you don’t know anything about it,” 
Dick assured him placidly. If plain-speaking were 
the order of the day, the Benyon family could hold 
their own. 

“ I bet he hasn’t read the prospectus,” said 
Jimmy. 

“ Couldn’t understand it, if he had,” added Dick, 
after a comforting gulp of champagne. 

“ You’re really splendid people to be in with,” 
said May, looking gratefully from one brother to 
the other. They were so staunch, and alas, how 
had they been treated ! 

For a moment Morewood said nothing; he sat 
smiling maliciously. 


289 


QUISANTE 

“ Shall I give my authority? ” he asked. “ It 
won’t do you any harm if I do, because I can’t call 
him to give evidence.” 

“We had all the best authorities,” said Dick 
Benyon, “as you’d know if you’d read the pro- 
spectus.” 

“Hang the prospectus! What’s the good of 
reading a man’s puff of his own wares? But I’m 
certain you hadn’t one authority.” 

“Well, who’s your authority?” asked Jimmy, 
with a contempt that he took no trouble to con- 
ceal. 

“ What he said was confidential, you know ” 

“ Oh, you won’t get out of it like that. We’re 
all friends here. Fire away.” 

Thus exhorted, and indeed nothing loth — for he 
had not read the prospectus and knew not the full 
extent of what he did — Morewood drew his mali- 
cious little bow and shot his arrow, sharper-pointed 
than he fancied. “ I suppose you’ll admit,” said he 
with the exaggerated carelessness of a man with 
an unanswerable case, “ that poor old Maturin was 
some authority, and he told me in confidence — I 
asked him about it, you know, just to be able to 
warn you fellows — that there was an absolutely 
fatal defect in your machine.” 

To score too great a triumph is sometimes as dis- 
concerting as to fail. There was no chorus of in- 
dignation, no denial of Maturin’s authority, no good- 
natured scoffing such as Morewood had expected. 
He looked round on faces fallen into a sudden 
290 


THE IRREVOCABLE 


troubled seriousness ; no voice was raised in protest, 
gay or grave. In an instant he knew that he had 
done something far beyond what his humour had 
suggested ; but what it was or how it came about, 
he could not tell. 

The Benyon brothers were not over-ready of 
speech in a difficulty; their thoughts were busy 
now, but their tongues tied. Marchmont found 
nothing to say ; he could not help raising his eyes 
under half-drooped lids till they rested on May Qui- 
sante’s face. There was a moment more of silence ; 
then, answering the tacit summons of the table, 
May Quisante spoke. She leant forward a little, 
smiling, and spoke clearly and composedly. 

“ Oh, you misunderstood him,” she said. “ He 
was consulted, but fell ill before he could go into 
all the facts or write his report. But he had ex- 
pressed a favourable opinion of the Alethea to my 
husband.” She paused, and then added, “ If you’d 
taken the trouble to read the prospectus you’d have 
known that, Mr. More wood. ” 

Little Lady Richard laughed nervously, glanced 
round, and rose from the table ; it was sooner than 
the ladies were wont to move but, as she said, no- 
body seemed to be eating any fruit, and so there 
was nothing to stay for. The men sat down again. 
Morewood perceived very clearly that a constraint 
had come upon them ; but he was possessed by 
curiosity. 

“ Well, I should like to see the prospectus now,” 
he said. 


291 


QUISANTE 

“ You’ll find one or two over there,” said Dick, 
jerking his head towards a writing-table, but not 
rising. 

Morewood made in the direction indicated, a low 
mutter from Dick following him. Then Jimmy 
observed : 

“ He doesn’t understand a thing about it, you 
know, and of course he didn’t follow what Maturin 
said.” 

The others nodded. This explanation was indeed 
the simple one ; in most cases it would have been 
accepted without demur; or recourse would have 
been had to the hypothesis of a sudden change in 
the Professor’s opinion; indeed Marchmont broached 
this solution in an off-hand way. Neither view was 
explicitly rejected, but a third possibility was in their 
minds, one which would not and could not have been 
there, had any one of the three had the settling of 
the prospectus and conducted the business with 
Maturin. But Alexander Quisante, assisted only 
by cousin Mandeville, had conducted the business 
and drawn the prospectus. 

Morewood came back, sat down, and poured out 
a glass of wine. 

“ Yes, I see what it says,” he observed. His 
mood of malice was gone, he looked troubled and 
rather remorseful. “Well, I only repeated what 
Maturin said. I’d no idea there was anything about 
him in the prospectus.” 

The two reasonable views were suggested again 
by Dick and Marchmont. 

292 


TIIE IRREVOCABLE 


“ It’s impossible that I misunderstood him, but 
of course he may have changed his mind.” He 
paused, seeming to think. “ I gather that he put 
nothing in writing ? ” he went on. “ He only 
talked to you about it ? ” 

After a little pause Jimmy Benyon said, “ Not 
exactly to us — to the people at the office, you know. 
And there was nothing in writing as you say — at 
least so I understand too.” 

Morewood passed his hand through his hair; the 
ruffled locks intensified the ruefulness of his aspect ; 
he had before his eyes the picture of May Quisante’s 
silence and her so careful, so deliberate little speech 
after it. He tossed off his wine almost angrily, as 
Dick Benyon rose, saying, “ Let’s have coffee in 
the garden. It’s a splendid night.” He added with 
a rather uneasy laugh, “Quisante’s coming to- 
morrow! we’ll leave him to tackle you himself, 
Morewood.” 

Lady Richard and Fanny Gaston were sitting in 
the garden by the drawing-room window when the 
men joined them; Morewood dropped into a chair 
by Lady Richard and, looking across the lawn, saw 
May strolling by herself on the walk that bounded 
the shrubberies. He took his coffee in silence and 
then lighted his pipe ; the vanity of cigarettes was 
not for him. At last he said confidentially, 

“ I’ve a sort of feeling that I’ve made an ass of 
myself.” 

Lady Richard glanced round ; Fanny had gone 
across to the other group ; nobody was in hearing. 

293 


QU1SANTE 

“ Do you know,” she said in a low voice, “ I be- 
lieve that mans been up to some trick again. You 
know how he treated us over the Crusade? Now I 
suppose he’s going to ruin us ! ” The satisfaction 
of a justified prophet seemed to mingle with the 
dismay of a wife and the anger of a sufferer ; Lady 
Itichard had expected nothing less all along ! 

“ I’m afraid I rather — well, that Lady May didn’t 
like it.” 

“ Poor dear May must know what to expect by 
now.” 

“ Perhaps she never knows what to expect. 
That’d be worse.” The remark was a little too 
subtle for Lady Richard’s half-attentive ear. She 
contented herself with sighing expressively. More- 
wood looked across the lawn again ; the slow-walk- 
ing figure had disappeared, presumably into the 
shrubberies. Two or three moments later he saw 
Marchmont strolling off in that direction, cigar in 
mouth and hands in pockets. He rose, shook him- 
self, and cried to the brothers, “ Oh, in heaven s 
name, come and play pool.” Jimmy refused and 
paired off with his fiancee , but Dick agreed to bill- 
iards, saying as they went in, “ It’ll keep you from 
making a fool of yourself any more.” Morewood, 
finding his own impression of his conduct thus con- 
firmed, grunted remorsefully as he took down his 
cue. 

Marchmont crossed the lawn and the path, and 
was hidden by the shrubberies. Lady Richard 
watched till she could see him no more, and then 
294 


THE IRREVOCABLE 


went indoors with another sigh ; this last was a dis- 
claimer of responsibility ; if Marchmont liked to 
comfort May, it was no business of hers. 

He loitered on, not admitting that he was look- 
ing for May, but very sore to think that she had 
wandered away to a sad solitude rather than be with 
her friends ; since she did that, she was wounded 
indeed. There was a seat round an old tree-trunk 
at the farther side of the shrubbery ; the memory 
of it really directed his apparently aimless steps, 
and as he approached it he threw away his half- 
smoked cigar ; he thought he would find her there ; 
what he would say to her he did not know. 

He was right. There she sat, very still, and 
looking pale under the moon. Coming up to her 
he said, “ I know you want to be alone, don’t 
you ? ” She smiled and answered, “ No, stay. I’m 
glad to have you,” and he sat down by her. She 
was silent, her eyes gazing steadily in front of her; 
the air was sweet and very still. Now he needed 
no telling that his guess at the situation had been 
right, that she had shielded her husband at her 
own cost ; her face told him what the cost seemed 
to her. A great indignation against the man filled 
him, gaining unacknowledged reinforcement from 
the love he himself had for the woman. He had 
wrought for himself a masterpiece of pure and fault- 
less beauty ; when another took it from him, he had 
endured ; now the other spoilt and stained and de- 
filed it ; could he still endure ? It seems sometimes 
as though the deep silence of night carries thoughts 
295 


QUISANTE 

from heart to heart that would be lost in the passage 
through the broken tumultuous sea of day. The 
thought that was in him he felt to be in her also, 
changed as her mind would change it, yet in essence 
the same. She had now no ironical smiles for him, 
no fencing, and no playing with her fate ; and he 
had for her no talk of loyalty. The time for these 
was gone in the light of the confidence that her 
silence gave him ; it told him everything, and he 
had no rebuke for its openness. At last he put out 
his hand and lightly pressed hers for a moment. 
She turned her eyes on him. 

“It’s a little hard, isn’t it? ” she asked. “ I can 
stand most things, but it’s hard to have to tell lies 
to your friends.” Her voice rose a little and shook 
as the composure which she had so long kept failed 
her. “And they know I’m lying. Oh, I don’t 
deceive them, however hard I try. They don’t tell 
me so, but they know. I can’t help it, I must do 
it. I must sit and do it, knowing that they know 
it’s a lie. For decency’s sake I must do it, though. 
Some people believe, the Mildmays believe ; but 
you here don’t. You know me too well, and you 
know him too well.” 

“ For God’s sake, don’t talk like that,” said 
Marchmont. 

“ Don’t talk like that ! The talk’s not the harm. 
If you could tell me how not to live like that ! ” 
Her self-control broke utterly ; she covered her 
face with her hands and sobbed. 

“For God’s sake !” he murmured again. 

296 


THE IRREVOCABLE 


“ Oh, you don’t know. This is only the crown 
of it. It goes on every day. I’m coming not to 
know myself, not to be myself. I live scheming 
and lying. I’ve given everything, all my life. 
Must I give myself, my own self, too ? Must I 
lose that for him ? ” 

Her bitter despairing words seemed to him what 
at that moment her mood made them seem to her- 
self, the all-sufficient all-embracing summary of 
her life ; she had then no thought of another side 
to it, and into that she gave him no insight. He 
counted as dead for her all the high hopes and the 
attractive imaginings with which Quisante once 
had fired her. Dead for her they were at that mo- 
ment ; she could see nothing but her husband’s 
baseness and a baseness bred by it in herself ; her 
bond to him was an obligation to dishonour and a 
chain of treachery. She abandoned to March- 
mont’s eyes all the hidden secrets of her misery ; in 
this she seemed also to display before him the dead 
body of her hopes, her interest, her ambitions. 
Giving all, she had gained nothing ; so her sobs 
said. But only for moments does life seem so 
simple that a sob can cover all of it. 

Presently she grew calmer. “ I’ve never broken 
out like this before,” she said, “ but it’s rather bad 
to have to look forward to a life of it. And it’ll 
get worse, not better; or if it doesn’t get worse 
it’ll mean that I’m getting worse, and that’ll be 
worse than all.” She smiled forlornly. “ "W hat a 
tangle of 4 worses ’ I’ve tied it up in, haven’t I ? ” 

297 


QUISANTE 

She did not seem to be ashamed of her breaking- 
out, but rather to be relieved by it, and to feel that 
it had helped to establish or renew an intimacy in 
which she found some pleasure and some consola- 
tion ; at least there was one friend now who knew 
exactly how she stood and would not set down to 
that own self of hers the actions that he might see 
her perform in Quisante’s service. “ You once told 
me I ought to take a confidante,” she reminded 
him. “ I don’t suppose you thought T should take 
you, though.” 

She had had her outburst; his was still to come. 
Yet it seemed rather as though he acted on a de- 
liberate purpose than was carried away by any irre- 
sistible impulse ; he spoke simply and plainly. 

“ I love you as I’ve always loved you,” he said. 

“ I know, and I’ve taken advantage of it to in- 
flict all this on you.” Her eyes rested on his for 
some moments, and she answered his glance. “No, 
I can’t escape that way. I’m not talking of run- 
ning away; of course I couldn’t do that.” She 
laughed a little and even he smiled. “ But I can’t 
escape even in — in spirit by it. Sometimes I wish 
I could. It would change the centre of my life, 
wouldn’t it ? Perhaps I shouldn’t mind the things 
that distress me so much now. But I can’t.” 

“You don’t love me? Well, you never did.” 
He paused an instant and added in a puzzled way, 
“ Somehow.” 

“Yes, it’s all ‘somehow.’ Somehow I didn’t; 
I ought to have. Somehow I’ve got where I am; 

298 


THE IRREVOCABLE 


and somehow, I suppose, I shall endure it.” She 
laid her hand on his. “ I should actually like to 
love you — in a way I do. I’m afraid I’ve very 
little conscience about it. But somehow — yes, 
somehow again— it’s all a hopeless puzzle — I can’t 
altogether, not as you mean. I understand it very 
little myself, and I know you won’t understand it 
at all, but — well, Alexander imprisons me; I can’t 
escape from him ; as long as he’s there he keeps 
me.” She looked in Marchmont’s face and then 
shook her head, half-sadly, half-playfully. “ You 
don’t understand a bit, do you ? ” she asked. 

“No, I don’t,” he said bluntly, with an accent of 
impatience and almost of exasperation. Recognis- 
ing it, she gave the slightest shrug of her shoulders. 

“ It’s my infatuation again, I suppose, as you all 
said when I married him. It makes you all angry. 
Oh, it makes me angry too, as far as that goes.” 

“ He’s ruining your whole life.” 

She made no answer, relapsing into the still si- 
lence which had preceded her tears. Marchmont 
was baffled again by his old inability to follow the 
movements of her mind and the old sense of blind- 
ness in dealing with her to which it gave rise. 
Owing to this he had lost her at the first; now it 
seemed to prevent him from repairing the loss. In 
spite of all that they had in common, in spite of 
the strong attraction she felt towards him and of 
the love he bore her, there was always, as she had 
said once, at last a break somewhere, some solution 
in the chain of sympathy that should have bound 
299 


QUISANTE 

them together. But he would not admit this, and 
chose to see the only barrier between them in the 
man who was ruining her life. 

“You’d be yourself again if only you could get 
away from him,” he murmured resentfully. 

“ Perhaps ; I never shall, though.” She added, 
laughing a little, “Neither will you. I’ve made 
you an accomplice, you’re bound to a guilty silence 
now.” Then, growing grave, she leant towards 
him. “ Don’t look like that,” she said, “ pray, pray, 
pray don’t. I haven’t spoilt your life as well as 
my own ? No, you mustn’t tell me that.” Her 
voice grew very tender and low. “ But I can say 
almost all you want. I wish I had loved you, I 
wish I had married you. Oh, how I wish it ! I 
should have been happy, I think, and I know I — 
I shouldn’t have had to live as I do now and do the 
things I have to do now. Well, it’s too late.” 

“ You’re very young,” he said in a voice as low 
as hers. “ It mayn’t always be too late. ” 

She started a little, drawing away from him. 
He had brought back thoughts which the stress of 
pain and excitement had banished from her mind. 

“ You mean — ? ” she murmured. “ I know what 
you mean, though.” Her face showed again a sort 
of puzzle. “ I can’t think of that happening. I 
tried the other day — a propos of something else ; 
but I couldn’t. I couldn’t see it, you know. It 
doesn’t fit my ideas about him. No, that won’t 
happen. We must just go on.” 

The wind had begun to rise, the trees stirred, 
300 


THE IRREVOCABLE 


leaves rustled, the whole making, or seeming to her 
ears to make, a sad whimsical moaning. She rose, 
gathering her lace scarf closer round her neck, and 
saying, 44 Do you hear the wood crying for us ? It’s 
sorry for our little troubles.” She stood facing him 
and he took both her hands in his. 46 You look so 
unhappy,” she said in a fresh access of pity. “No 
use, no use ; it’ll all go on, right to the end of 
everything. So — good-bye.” 

44 He’s coming to-morrow, isn’t he ? ” 

44 Yes, he’s coming to-morrow. Good-bye.” She 
smiled a little, feeling Marchmont’s hands drawing 
her to him. 44 Oh, kiss me then,” she said, turning 
her cheek to him. 44 It’ll feel friendly. And now 
we’ll go in.” 

They had just started to return when they heard 
steps in the wood, and a moment later her name 
was called in Dick Benyon’s voice. Marchmont 
shouted in answer, 44 Here we are,” and Dick came 
along the path. 

44 1 couldn’t think where you’d got to,” he said. 

44 That’s because you’ve no romance in you,” said 
May. 44 Or you’d have known we should be wan- 
dering in the wood in the moonlight. Ah, she’s 
gone under a cloud now, but she was beautiful. 
Are we wanted, though ? ” 

44 Well, in the first place I think you’ve been 
quite long enough for propriety, and in the second 
a man’s brought a wire for you, and he’s waiting to 
see if there’s an answer.” 

44 Under that combination of moral and practical 
20 301 


QUISANTE 

reasons we’ll go in,” said May, laughing. March- 
mont, less ready in putting on his mask, said noth- 
ing but followed a step or two behind. “ I expect 
the wire’s from Alexander,” she went on, 46 to say 
he’s going to make a speech somewhere and won’t 
come to-morrow.” 

Dick turned to her with a quick jerk of the head : 
a moment later he was covered with confusion, for 
her bitter little smile told him that he had betrayed 
the joy which such a notion gave him. To all of 
them it would be a great relief that Quisante should 
not come while the memory of the scene that More- 
wood had caused at dinner was still so fresh. Dick, 
though he attempted no excuse, felt himself for- 
given w T hen May took his arm and thus walked back 
to the house. 

“Your husband had a slight seizure while dining 
with us to-night. He is comfortable now, and 
there is no immediate reason for anxiety. But 
doctor thinks you had better come up earliest con- 
venient train to-morrow. Winterton Mildmay.” 

May read the telegram, standing between March- 
mont and Dick. She handed it to Dick, saying, 
“ Read it, and will you send an answer that I’ll 
come as early as possible in the morning ; ” then she 
walked to the table and sat down by it. Dick gave 
Marchmont the slip of paper and went off to de- 
spatch the answer. Nobody else was in the room, 
except Fanny Gaston, who was playing softly on the 
piano in the corner. Marchmont came up to May 
and put the telegram down on the table by her. 

302 


THE IRREVOCABLE 


‘ 4 I’m so sorry,” he said formally and constrain- 
edly. 

44 1 don’t suppose it’s very serious,” she said. 
44 But I must go, of course.” She went on under 
the cover of Fanny’s gentle music. “ It’s all rather 
odd though — its coming to-night and its happening 
at the Mildmays’. I forgot, though, you don’t know 
why I feel that so odd. How Lady Mildmay’ll 
nurse him ! I expect I shall have a struggle to get 
him out of the house and home again.” 

Marchmont made no answer but stood looking 
down on her face. She met his glance fairly, and 
knew what it was that had forced itself into his 
mind and now found expression in his eyes. She 
had declared to him that her fate was irrevocable, 
that the lines of her life were set, that nothing but 
death could alter them, and that death had no part 
in her thoughts about her husband. The telegram 
did not prove her wrong ; yet seizure was a vague 
word under which much might he hidden. But her 
mood and her feeling still remained ; it was not in 
hope or in any attempt at self- consolation, but in 
the expression of an obstinate conviction which 
dominated her mind that she said in answer to 
Marchmont’s glance, “ I can’t believe it’s anything 
really amiss. I expect I shall find him at work 
again when I get back to-morrow.” 

With a little movement of his hands Marchmont 
turned away. He had at command no conven- 
tional phrases in which to express a desire that she 
might prove right. It was impossible to say that he 
303 


QUISANTE 

wished she might prove wrong; even in his own 
mind a man leaves a hope like that vague and un- 
formulated. But he marvelled, still without under- 
standing, at the strange obstinate idea which seemed 
almost to exalt Quisante above the ordinary lot of 
mortals, to see in him a force so living that it could 
not perish, a vitality so intense that death could lay 
no hand on it. He glanced at her as he crossed 
the room to the piano ; she sat now with the tele- 
gram in her hands and her eyes fixed on the floor 
in front of her. It needed a sharper summons, a 
nearer reality, to rouse her from the conviction that 
her life was bound for ever to that of the man whom 
she had chosen and for whom she had given so 
much. It would all go on, right to the end of 
everything. The telegram had not shaken that 
faith in her, nor altered that despair. 


304 


CHAPTER XVII 


DONE FOR? 

A knotty point of casuistry was engaging the 
thoughts of the Dean of St. Neot’s. Morewood 
had been to see him, had told without disguise the 
whole story of his blunder at the dinner-table at 
Ashwood, had referred to Alexander Quisante’s 
serious illness, and had finally, without apology and 
without periphrasis, expressed the hope that Alex- 
ander Quisante would die. The Dean’s rebuke 
had produced a strenuous effort at justification. 
Quisante was, the painter pointed out, no doubt a 
force, but a force essentially immoral (Morewood 
took up morality when it suited his purpose) ; he 
did work, but he made unhappiness ; he affected 
people’s lives, but not so as to promote their well- 
being. Or if the Dean chose to champion the man, 
Morewood was ready for him again. If Quisante 
were good, were moral, were deserving of defence, 
then the merely natural process lugubriously de- 
scribed as death, and fantastically treated with black 
plumes and crape, would, so far as he himself was 
concerned, be no more than a transition to a better 
state of existence, while certain solid and indis- 
putable benefits would accrue to those who were 
condemned to wait a little longer for their sum- 
mons. Whether the Dean elected to be for Qui- 
305 


QUISANTE 

sante or against him, Morewood claimed a ver- 
dict. 

This challenging of a man’s general notions by 
the putting of a thorny special case was rather re- 
sented by the Dean ; it reminded him of the voluble 
atheist in Hyde Park, who bases his attack on the 
supernatural on the obsolete enactments of the 
Book of Leviticus. None the less he was rather 
puzzled as to what he had a right to wish about 
Alexander Quisante, and so he had recourse to his 
usual remedy — a consultation with his wife. He 
had the greatest faith in Mrs. Baxter’s eye for 
morality ; perhaps generations of clerical ancestry 
had bred in her such an instinct as we see in sport- 
ing-dogs ; she could not go wrong. On this ques- 
tion she was immediately satisfactory. 

“We are forbidden,” she said, removing a piece 
of tape from her mouth, “ to wish anybody’s death ; 
you know that as well as I do, Dan.” She made a 
stitch or two. “We must leave it to Providence,” 
she ended serenely. 

At first sight there was nothing much in this 
dictum ; it appeared even commonplace. But Mrs. 
Baxter had been lunching with the Mildmays, had 
heard a full account of what the doctors said about 
Quisante, and had expressed her conviction that he 
could not possibly last long. So far as could be 
judged then, the confidence which she proposed to 
show ran no appreciable risk of being misplaced, 
while at the same time she avoided committing 
herself by any expression of a personal opinion. 

306 


DONE FOR? 

“ Doubtless, my dear,” said the Dean with a little 
cough. 

“ If he had thought less about himself and more 
about other people — ” she resumed. 

44 That can’t have anything to do with an apo- 
plectic seizure,” the Dean pleaded. 

Mrs. Baxter looked up with a patient smile. 

“ If you weren’t in such a hurry, Dan, to show 
what you call your enlightenment (though heaven 
knows you may be wrong all the time, and a judg- 
ment is a perfectly possible thing) you’d have 
found out that I was only going to say that, if he’d 
thought more of other people, he’d find other peo- 
ple thinking more about him now.” 

44 There I quite agree with you, my dear.” 

Mrs. Baxter looked less grateful than she might 
have for this endorsement of her views ; self-confi- 
dence is apt to hold external support in cheap 
esteem. 

4 4 When the first Mrs. Greening died,” she re- 
marked, 44 they gave the maids very nice black 
frocks, with a narrow edging of good crape. The 
very first Sunday- out that Elizabeth had — the 
butcher’s daughter near the Red Cow — you re- 
member? — she stuck a red ribbon round the neck.” 

The Dean looked puzzled. 

44 Mrs. Greening was the most selfish woman I’ve 
ever known,” explained Mrs. Baxter; and she added 
with a pensive smile, 44 And I’ve lived in a Cathe- 
dral town for thirty years.” 

The red-ribbon became intelligible; it fell into 
307 


QUISANTE 

line with Morewood’s ill-disciplined wish. Both 
signified an absence of love, such a departing with- 
out being desired as serves for the epitaph of a 
Jewish king. The Dean cast round for somebody 
who would prove such an inscription false on Alex- 
ander Quisante’s tomb. 

“ Anyhow it would break the old aunt’s heart,” 
he said. 

“ It’d save her money,” observed Mrs. Baxter. 

“ And his wife ! ” mused the Dean. It was im- 
possible to say whether there were a question in his 
words or not. But his first instance had not been 
Quisante’s wife; the old aunt offered a surer case. 

“ If you always knew what a man’s wife thought 
about him, you’d know a great deal,” said Mrs. 
Baxter. She possessed in the fullest degree her 
sex’s sense of an ultimate superiority in perception ; 
men knew neither what their wives did nor what 
they were ; wives might not know what their hus- 
bands did, but they always knew what they were. 
It would be rash to differ from a person of her ob- 
servation and experience ; half a dozen examples 
would at once have confounded the objector. 

Mrs. Baxter took perhaps a too private and do- 
mestic view of the man whose fate she was discus- 
sing ; she judged the husband and friend, she had 
nothing to say to the public character. The voices 
of his political associates and acquaintances, of his 
fellow- workers in business, of his followers and en- 
thusiastic adherents in his constituency, did not 
reach her ears, and perhaps, if they had, would 
308 


DONE FOR? 


not have won much attention. The consternation 
of Constantine Blair, Lady Castlefort’s dismay, the 
sad gossiping and head- shaking that went on in the 
streets of Henstead and round old Mr. Foster’s 
comfortable board, witnessed to a side of Quisante 
in which Mrs. Baxter did not take much interest. 
She did not understand the sort of stupor with 
w r hich they who had lived with him and worked 
with him saw the force he wielded and the antici- 
pations he filled them with both struck down by a 
sudden blow ; she did not share the feeling that all 
at once a gap had been made in life. 

But something of this sort was the effect in all 
the circles which Quisante had invaded and in which 
he had moved. The philosophical might already 
be saying that there was no necessary man ; to the 
generality that reflection would come only later, 
when they had found a new leader, a fresh inspira- 
tion, and another personality in which to see the 
embodiment of their hopes. Now the loss was too 
fresh and too complete ; for although it might be 
doubtful how long Quisante’s life would last, there 
seemed no chance of his ever filling the place to 
which he had appeared to be destined. Only a 
miracle could give that back to one who must cling 
to life, if he could keep his hold on it at all, at the 
cost of abandoning all the efforts and all the activi- 
ties which had made it what it was alike for himself 
and for others. He was rallying slowly and pain- 
fully from his blow ; a repetition of it would be the 
certain penalty of any strenuous mental exertion or 
309 


QUISANTfi 

any sustained strain of labour. In inactivity, in 
retirement, in the placid existence of a recognised 
invalid he might live years, indeed probably would ; 
but otherwise the authorities declined to promise 
him any life at all. His body had played him false 
in the end. Constantine Blair began to look out 
for a candidate for Henstead and to wonder whether 
Sir Winterton would again expose himself to the 
unpleasantness of a contested election ; Lady Castle- 
fort must find another Prime Minister, the fighting 
men another champion, even the Alethea Printing 
Press Limited a new chairman. The places he had 
filled or made himself heir to were open to other 
occupants and fresh pretenders. That the change 
seemed so considerable proved how great a figure 
he had become in men’s eyes no less than how ut- 
terly his career was overthrown. The comments on 
his public life were very flattering, but already they 
praised in the tone of an obituary notice, and the 
hopes they expressed of his being able some day to 
return to the arena were well understood to be no 
more than a kind or polite refusal to display naked 
truth in the merciless clearness of print. 

Here was the state of things which extorted from 
Morewood the blunt wish that Quisante might die. 
Such a desire was hardly cruel to the man himself, 
since he must now lose all that he had loved best in 
the market of the world ; but it was not the man 
himself who had been most in Morewood’s thoughts. 
With a penetration sharpened by the memory of his 
blunder he had appreciated the perverse calamity 
310 


DONE FOR? 


which had fallen on the man’s wife, and had passed 
swiftly to the conclusion that for her an end by 
death was the only chance, the only turn of events 
which could give back to her the chance of a real 
life to be lived. He knew by what Quisante had 
attracted and held her; all that, it seemed, was 
gone now. He divined also in what Quisante re- 
pelled and almost terrified her ; that would remain 
so long as breath was in the man and might grow 
even more intense. A sense of fairness somehow 
impelled him to his wish ; her bargain had turned 
out so badly ; the underlying basis of her marriage 
was broken ; she was left to pay the price to the 
last penny, but was to get nothing of what she had 
looked to purchase. Was it not then the part of a 
courageous man to face his instinctive wish, and to 
accept it boldly? Cant and tradition apart, it must 
be the wish of every sensible person. For she 
knew, she had realised most completely on the very 
evening when Quisante was struck down, what 
manner of man he was. She might have endured if 
she had still been able to tell herself of the wonderful 
things that he would do. No such comfort was 
open now. The man was still what he was ; but he 
would do nothing. There came the change. 

“ That’s the weak point about marriage as com- 
pared with other contractual arrangements,” said 
Morewood to Dick Benyon. “ You can never in 
any bargain ensure people getting what they expect 
to get — because to do that you’d have to give all of 
them sense — but in most you can to a certain extent 
311 


QUISANTE 

see that they’re allowed to keep what they actually 
did get. In marriage you can’t. Something of this 
sort happens and the whole understanding on which 
the arrangement was based breaks down.” 

“Do people marry on understandings?” asked 
Dick doubtfully. 

“ The only way of getting anything like justice for 
her is that he should die. You must see that? ” 

“I don’t know anything about it,” said Dick 
morosely, “ but I hear there’s no particular likeli- 
hood of his dying if he obeys orders and keeps 
quiet.” 

“ Just so, just so,” said Morewood. “ That’s ex- 
actly what I mean. Do you suppose she’d ever 
have taken him if he’d been going to keep quiet? 
You know why you took him up ; well, she did 
just the same. You know what you found him; 
she’s found him just the same. What’s left now? 
The role of a loving nurse! She’s not born a 
nurse ; and how in the devil’s name is she to be ex- 
pected to love him?” 

Dick Benyon found no answer to questions which 
put with a brutal truthfulness the salient facts of 
the position. The one thing necessary, the one 
thing which would have made the calamity bear- 
able, perhaps better than bearable, was wanting. 
She might love or have loved things in him, or 
about him, or done by him ; himself she did not 
love; and now nothing but himself remained to 
her. Seeing the matter in this light, Dick was 
dumb before Morewood’s challenge to him to say, 
312 


DONE FOR? 


if he dared, that he hoped a long life for Alexander 
Quisante. Yet neither would he wish his death; 
for Dick had been an enthusiast, the spell had been 
very strong on him, and there still hung about him 
something of that inability to think of Quisante as 
dead or dying, something of the idea that he must 
live and must by very strength of will find strength 
of body, which had prevented May herself from be- 
lieving that the news which came in her telegram 
could mean anything really serious. While Qui- 
sante lived, there would always be to Dick a possi- 
bility that he would rise up from his sickness and 
get to work again. Death would end this, death 
with its finality and its utter incongruous stillness. 
Death was repose, and neither for good nor for evil 
had Quisante ever embraced repose. He had 
never been quiet ; when he was not achieving, he 
had been grimacing. In death he could do neither. 

“ I can’t fancy the fellow dead,” said Dick to his 
wife and his brother. “ I should be expecting him 
to jump up again every minute.” 

Lady Richard shuddered. The actual Quisante 
had been bad; the idea of a dead Quisante hor- 
ribly galvanised into movement by a restlessness 
that the tomb could not stifle was hideous. Jimmy 
came to her aid with a rather unfeeling but ap- 
parently serious suggestion. 

“We must cremate him,” he said gravely. 

“No, but, barring rot,” Dick pursued, “I don’t 
believe he’ll die, you know.” 

“ Poor May ! ” said Lady Richard. Neither of 
313 


QUISANTE 

them pressed her to explain the precise point in 
May Quisante’s position which produced this ex- 
clamation of pity. It might have been that the 
death was possible, or that the death was not cer- 
tain, or at least not near, or it might have sprung 
from a purely general reflection on the unhappiness 
of having life coupled with the life of such a man 
as Quisante. 

All these voices of a much interested, much 
pitying, much (and on the whole not unenjoyably) 
discussing world were heard only in dim echoes in 
the Mildmays’ big quiet house in Carlton- House 
Terrace, where Quisante had been stricken by his 
blow. There May had found him on her hasty re- 
turn from Ashwood, and here he was still, thanks 
to the hosts and hostess’s urgent entreaties. They 
declared that he was not fit to be moved ; the 
doctors hardly endorsed this view heartily but 
went so far as to say that any disturbance was no 
doubt bad in its degree; Lady Mildmay seized 
eagerly on the grudging support. 44 Let him stay 
here till he’s fit to go to the country,” she urged. 
44 I’m sure we can make him comfortable. And — ” 
she smiled apologetically, 44 I’m a good nurse, if 
I’m nothing else, you know.” 

44 But won’t Sir Winterton ? ” 

44 My dear, you don’t know what a lot Winter- 
ton thinks of Mr. Quisante; he’s proud to be of 
the least service to him. And you do know, I 
think, how it delights him to be any use at all to 
you.” 


3M 


DONE FOR? 


In spite of that reason buried in her own heart 
which made every kindness received from these 
kind hands bitter to her, May let him stay. He 
wanted to stay, she thought, so far as his relaxed 
face and dimmed eyes gave evidence of any desire. 
And besides — yes, Lady Mildmay was a good 
nurse; he might find none so good if he were 
moved away. No sense of duty, no punctilious 
performance of offices, no such constancy of at- 
tendance as a wife is bound to render, could give 
what Lady Mildmay gave. Yet more than these 
May could not achieve. It was rather cruel, as it 
seemed to her, that the great and sudden call on 
her sympathy should come at the moment of all 
others when the spring of her sympathy was 
choked, when anger still burnt in her heart, when 
passionate resentment for a wound to her own 
pride and her own honour still inflamed her, when 
the mood in which she had broken out in her talk 
with Marchmont was still predominant. Such a 
falling-out of events sometimes made this real and 
heavy sickness seem like one of Quisante’s tricks, 
or at least suggested that he might be making the 
most of it in his old way, as he had of his faintness 
at the Imperial League banquet, or of his headache 
when old Foster’s letter followed on the declaration 
of the poll at Henstead. 

Such feelings as these, strong enough to chill 
her pity till Lady Mildmay wondered at a wife so 
cold, were not deep or sincere enough to blind 
May Quisantd’s eyes. Even without the doctor’s 
315 


QUISANTE 

story — which she had insisted on being told in all 
its plainness — she thought that she would have 
known the meaning of what had befallen her hus- 
band and herself, and have grasped at once its two 
great features, the great certainty and the great 
uncertainty; the certainty that his career was at 
an end, the uncertainty as to how near his life was 
to its end. Such a position chimed in too well 
with the bitter mood of Ashwood not to seem sent 
to crown it by a malicious device of fate’s. At 
the very moment when she least could love, she 
was left no resource but love ; at the moment 
when she would have turned her eyes most away 
from him and most towards his deeds, the deeds 
were taken away and he only was left ; at the time 
when her hot anger against him drove her into a 
cry for release, she received no promise of release, 
or a promise deferred beyond an indefinitely stretch- 
ing period of a worse imprisonment. For she clung 
to no such hope as that which made Dick Benyon 
dream of a resurrection of activity and of power, 
and had nothing to look for save years of a life 
both to herself and to him miserable. It might be 
sin to wish him dead ; but was it sin to wish him 
either alive or dead, either in vigour or at rest? 
Sin or no sin, that was the desire in her heart, and 
it would not be stifled however much she accused 
its inhumanity or recognised the want of love in it. 
Was the fault all hers? With her lips still burn- 
ing from the lie that she had told for him, she 
could not answer “ yes.” 


316 


DONE FOR? 


Still and silent Quisante lay on his bed. His 
head was quite clear now and his eyes grew 
brighter. He watched Lady Mildmay as she min- 
istered to him, and he watched his wife with his 
old quick furtive glances, so keen to mark every 
shade of her manner towards him. She had never 
really deceived him as to her thoughts of him ; she 
did not deceive him now. He knew that her sym- 
pathies were estranged, more estranged than they 
had ever been before. So far as the reason lay in 
the incident of Ashwood, it was hidden from him ; 
he knew nothing of the last great shame that he 
had put on her. But long before this he had recog- 
nised where his power over her lay, by what means 
he had gained and by what he kept it; he had 
been well aware that if she were still to be under 
his sway, the conquest must be held by his achieve- 
ments ; he himself was as nothing beside them. 
Now, as he lay, he was thinking what would hap- 
pen. He also had heard the doctors story or 
enough of it to enable him to guess the purport of 
their sentence on him ; he was to live as an invalid, 
to abandon all his ambitions, to throw away all 
that made people admire him or made him some- 
thing in the world’s eyes and something great in 
hers. On these terms and on these only life was 
offered to him now; if he refused, if he defied 
nature, then he must go on with the sword ever 
hanging over him, in the knowledge that it soon 
must fall. He told himself that, yet was but half- 
convinced. Need it fall? With the first spurt of 
21 317 


QUISANTE 

renewed strength he raised that question and ar- 
gued it, till he seemed able to say “ It may fall,” 
rather than “ It must.” 

What should be his course then? The world 
thought it had done with him. All seemed gone 
for which his wife had prized him. Should he ac- 
cept that, and in its acceptance take up his life as 
valetudinarian, his life forgotten of the world which 
he had loved to conquer, barren of interest for the 
woman whom it had been his strongest passion to 
win against her instincts, to hold as it were against 
her will, and to fascinate in face of her distaste? 
Such were the terms offered ; Alexander Quisante 
lay long hours open-eyed and thought of them. 
There had come into his head an idea that at- 
tracted him mightily and suited well with his na- 
ture, so oddly mixed of strength and weakness, 
greatness and smallness, courage and bravado, the 
idea of a means by which he might keep the worlds 
applause and his wife’s fascinated interest, aye, and 
increase them too, till they should be more intense 
than they had ever been. That would be a tri- 
umph, played before admiring eyes. But what 
would be the price of it, and was the price one that 
he would pay? It might be the biggest price a 
mortal man can pay. So for a few days more 
Alexander Quisante lay and thought about it. 

Once old Miss Quisante came to see him, at his 
summons, not of her own volunteering. Since the 
blow fell she had neither come nor written, and 
May, with a sense of relief, had caught at the ex- 
318 


DONE FOR? 


cuse for doing no more than sending now and again 
a sick-room report. Aunt Maria looked old, frail, 
and very yellow, as she made her way to a chair by 
her nephew’s bed. He turned to her with the 
smile of mockery so familiar to her eyes. 

“You haven’t been in any hurry to see me, Aunt 
Maria,” said he. 

“You’ve always sent for me when you wanted 
me before, Sandro, and I supposed you would this 
time.” 

“May’s kept you posted up? You know what 
those fools of doctors say ? ” The old woman nod- 
ded. Quisant£ was smiling still. “ I’m done then, 
eh ? ” he asked. 

Her hands were trembling, but her voice was 
hard and unsympathetic. “ It sounds like it,” she 
said. 

Quisante raised himself on his elbow. 

“You’ll see me out after all,” said he, “ if I’m 
not careful. That’s what it comes to.” He gave 
a low laugh as Aunt Maria’s lips moved but no 
words came. He leant over a little nearer to her 
and asked, “ Have you had any talk with my wife 
about it ? ” 

“ No,” said Aunt Maria. “ Not a word, 
Sandro.” 

“ Nothing to be said, eh ? What does she think, 
though? Oh, you know! You’ve got your wits 
about you. Don’t take to considering my feelings 
at this time of day.” 

Now the old woman smiled too, 

319 


QUISANTE 

“I’m sorry you’re done for, Sandro,” she said. 
“ So’s your wife, I’ll be bound.” 

“ You both love me so much ? ” he sneered. 

“ We’ve always understood one another,” said 
Aunt Maria. 

“ I tell you, I love my wife.” Aunt Maria made 
no remark. “ And you both think I’m done for ? 
Well, we’ll see ! ” 

Aunt Maria looked up with a gleam of new inter- 
est in her sharp eyes, so like the eyes of the man on 
the bed. Quisantd met her glance and understood it ; 
it appealed at once to his malice and to his vanity ; 
it was a foretaste of the wonder he would raise and 
the applause he would win, if he determined to face 
the price that might have to be paid for them. He 
had listened with exasperated impatience to kind 
Lady Mildmay’s pleadings with him, to her motherly 
insisting on perfect rest for his mind, and to her 
pathetically hopeful picture of the new interests and 
the new pleasure he would find in days of rest and 
peace, with his wife tenderly looking after him. To 
such charming as that his ears were deaf ; they 
pricked at the faintest sound of distant cheering. 
It would be something to show even Aunt Maria 
that he was not done with ; what would it not be to 
show it to the world — and to that wife of his whom 
he loved and could hold only by his deeds ? 

“ I only know what the doctors say,” remarked 
Miss Quisantd. “ They say you must throw up 
everything.” 

“ You wouldn’t have me risk another of those 
320 


DONE FOR? 


damned strokes, would you ? ” he asked, the 
mockery most evident now in his voice and look. 
“ Lady Mildmay implores me to be careful, almost 
with tears. I suppose my own aunt’ll be still more 
anxious, and my own wife too ? ” 

“ Doctors aren’t infallible. And they don’t 
know you, Sandro. You’re not like other men.” 
Hard as the tone was, his ears drank in the words 
eagerly. 44 They don’t know how much there is in 
you.” 

Again he leant forward and said almost in a 
whisper, 

44 May thinks I’m done for ? ” Aunt Maria 
nodded. 44 And she’ll nurse me ? Take me to 
some infernal invalids’ place, full of bath- chairs, 
and walk beside mine, eh ? ” Aunt Maria smiled 
grimly. 44 She’ll like that, won’t she ? ” he asked. 

44 You won’t die,” she said suddenly and abruptly, 
her eyes fixed on his. 

44 What ? ” he asked sharply. 44 Well, who said 
I was going to die ? ” 

44 The doctors — unless you go to the invalids’ 
place.” 

44 Oh, and my dear aunt doesn’t agree with 
them ? ” Eagerness now broke through the mock- 
ery in his tones. He had longed so for a word of 
hope, for someone to persuade him that he might 
still live and could still work. 44 But suppose they 
proved right ? Well, that’s no worse than the other 
anyhow.” 

44 Not much,” said Aunt Maria. 44 But I don’t 

321 


QUISANTE 

believe ’em.” Her faith in him came back at his 
first summons of it. He had but to tell her that 
he would live and need not die, and she would be- 
lieve him. Sandro’s ways were not as other men’s ; 
she could not believe that for Sandro as for other 
men there were necessities not to be avoided, and a 
fate not to be mastered by any defiant human will. 
So there she sat, persuading him that he was not 
mortal ; and he lay listening, mocking, embittered, 
yet still lending an ear to the story, eager to believe 
her fable, rejoicing in the power that he had over 
her mind. If he felt all this for Aunt Maria, what 
would he not feel for the world, and for that wife 
of his ? If old Aunt Maria could so wake in him 
the love of life and the hatred of that living death 
to which he had been condemned, what passionate 
will to live would rise in answer to the world’s won- 
der and his wife’s ? 

“ I wish you’d give me that little book on the 
table there,” he said. Aunt Maria obeyed. 44 My 
engagement-book,” he explained. 46 Look. I had 
things booked for five months ahead. See — 
speeches, meetings, committees, the Alethea — so 
on — so on. They’re all what they call cancelled 
now.” He turned the leaves and Aunt Maria stood 
by him, watching. 

44 They won’t get anybody to do ’em like you, 
Sandro,” she said. 

He flung the book down on the floor in sud- 
den peevishness, with an oath of anger and exas- 
peration. 


322 


DONE FOR? 


“ By God, why haven’t I a fair chance ? ” he 
asked, and fell back on his pillows. 

Lady Mildmay would have come and whispered 
softly to him, patted his hand, given him lemonade, 
and bade him try to sleep while she read softly to 
him. His old Aunt Maria Quisante stood motion- 
less, saying not a word, looking away from him. 
Yet she was nearer to his mood and suited him 
better than kind Lady Mildmay. 

“ You’ve done a good bit already, Sandro,” she 
said. “ And you’re only thirty-nine.” 

“ And I’m to die at thirty-nine, or else live like 
an idiot, bored to death, and boring to death every- 
body about me ! ” 

“ I shall go now,” said Aunt Maria. “ Good-bye, 
Sandro. Send for me again when you want me.” 

“ Aunt Maria ! ” She stopped at his call. “ Go 
and see May. Go and talk to her.” 

“Yes, Sandro.” 

“ Tell her what you think. You know : I mean, 
tell her that perhaps it’s not as bad as the doctors 
say ; that I may get about a bit soon and — and so 
on — You know.” 

“ I’m to tell her that ? ” asked Aunt Maria. 

“ She’s not to conclude it’s all over with me yet.” 
Miss Quisante nodded and moved towards the door. 

“ Oh, and before you go, just pick up that book 
and give it me again, will you ? ” 

She returned, picked up the engagement-book 
and gave it him ; then she stood for a moment by 
the bed, beginning to smile a little. 

323 


QUISANTE 

“ You’ve got a lot to fret about,” she said. “ Don’t 
you fret about money, Sandro. I can manage a 
thousand in a month or so. No use hoarding it ; it 
looks as if we should neither of us want it long.” 

“ You’ve got a thousand ? What, now ? Avail- 
able?” 

“ In a week or so it could be.” 

“Then in God’s name put it in the Alethea. 
What are you thinking about? It’s the biggest 
thing out.” 

“ In the Alethea ? I meant to give it to you.” 

“ All right. I shall put it in, if you do. I tell 
you that in three years’ time you’ll be rich out of it, 
and I shall draw an income of a couple of thousand a 
year at least as long as the patent lasts, if not longer.” 

“ How long does it last ? ” 

“ Fourteen years ; then we’ll try for an exten- 
sion, for another seven, you know, and we ought to 
get it. First and last I expect to get fifty thou- 
sand out of the Alethea alone, besides another thing 
that I’ve talked over with Mandeville. I’ll tell you 
about it some day, I can’t to-day. I — I’m a little 
tired. But anyhow the Alethea’s sure. I’ll put 
the thousand into it for you, and I’ll hand you back 
double the money this time next year.” 

He was leaning on his left elbow, talking volu- 
bly ; his eyes were bright, his right hand moved in 
rapid apt gestures ; his voice was sanguine as he 
spoke of the seven years’ extension of the Alethea 
patent ; he had forgotten his stroke and the verdict 
of his doctors. Aunt Maria nodded her head to 
324 


DONE FOR? 


him, saying, “ I’ll send it you as soon as I can,” and 
made for the door. She was smiling now; Sandro 
seemed more himself again. He, left alone, lay 
back on his pillow, breathing fast, rather ex- 
hausted ; but after awhile he opened the engage- 
ment-book again and ran his eyes up and down its 
columns. Lady Mildmay found him thus occu- 
pied when she came to give him a cup of milk. 


325 


CHAPTER XVIII 


FOR LACK OF LOVE? 

Weston Marchmont, punctilious to the verge of 
fastidiousness, or even over it, in his conduct tow- 
ards the world and his friends, allowed himself 
easily enough a liberty of speculative opinion which 
the Dean of St. Neot’s would have hesitated about 
and the Dean’s wife decently veiled by a reference 
to Providence. To him the blow that had fallen on 
Quisante seemed no public evil. Allowing the 
man’s talents, he distrusted both his aims and his 
methods ; they would not have come to good ; the 
removal of his personality meant relief from an in- 
fluence which was not healthy and an example 
which taught nothing beyond the satisfaction of 
ambition and the pursuit of power. It was well 
then if Quisante were indeed, as he himself said, 
“ done with, ” so far as public activity went. March- 
mont, not concealing his particular interest but 
rather facing it and declaring it just, went on to 
say that, since Quisante was done with publicly, it 
was well that he should be done with privately also, 
and that as speedily as might be. Love for May 
Quisante might be the moving spring of this con- 
clusion, but he insisted that it was not necessary 
thereto. Any reasonable person her friend, nay, 
anybody whose attention was fairly directed to the 
326 


FOR LACK OF LOVE? 


case, must hold the same view. There was a hideous 
mistake to be undone, and only one way of undoing 
it. Permanent unions in marriage, immense and 
indispensable engines of civilisation, yet exacted 
their price. One instance of the compensating 
payment was that deaths sometimes became desir- 
able ; you had to wish a death sooner than life-long 
misery for a friend ; to wish it was not wrong, 
though to have to wish it might be distasteful. In 
this self-justification he contrived to subordinate, 
while he admitted, his own strong interest in the 
death and his violent dislike of the sufferer which 
robbed the death of its pain so far as he was con- 
cerned. People’s infatuation with Quisante, above 
all May’s infatuation, had so irritated him that he 
did not scruple to accept the only means of ending 
them ; that they would be thus ended it never came 
into his mind to doubt. His regret was only for 
the stretch of delay, for the time of waiting, for the 
respite promised to the doomed man if he would be 
docile and obedient; for all of them life was pass- 
ing, and too much had already in tragic mistake 
been spent on Alexander Quisante. 

“ I think you’re damnably inhuman,” said Dick 
Benyon, expressing, as he often did, an unsophisti- 
cated but not perhaps an altogether unsound pop- 
ular judgment. “ He’s a remarkable man. And 
after all she married him. She needn’t have. As 
for the party — well, I don’t know how we shall re- 
place him.” 

“ I don’t want him replaced,” said Marchmont. 

327 


QUISANTE 

44 Everything that he was doing had better be left 
undone ; and everything that he is had better not 
be. You call me inhuman. Well, people who re- 
press their pity for individuals in the interests of the 
general welfare are always called that.” 

44 Yes, but you don’t pity him,” retorted Dick. 

Marchmont thought for a moment. 44 No, I 
don’t,” he admitted. 44 1 see why one might; but 
I can’t do it myself. ” He paused and added, smil- 
ing, 44 1 suppose that’s the weak point in my atti- 
tude.” 

44 One of them,” said Dick, but he said no more. 
There are limits to candid discussion even among 
the closest friends ; he could not tell Marchmont 
in so many words that he wanted Quisant£ dead 
so as to be able to marry Quisante’s wife, however 
well aware of the fact he might be and March- 
mont might suspect him to be. Or, if he had said 
this, he could have said it only in vigorous reproof, 
perhaps even in horror; and to this he was not 
equal. For Dick was sorely torn. On the one 
hand he had never ceased to hang on Quisante’s 
words and to count on Quisante’s deeds ; on the 
other, he had never acquitted himself of respon- 
sibility for a marriage which he believed to have 
been most disastrous. Worst of all then for him 
was what threatened now, an end of the illumi- 
nating words and the stirring deeds, but no end 
to the marriage yet in sight. To him too death 
seemed the best thing, unless that wonderful un- 
likely resurrection of activity and power could 
328 , 


FOR LACK OF LOVE? 


come. And even then — Dick remembered the 
face of Quisantd’s wife as she lied for him to her 
friends at Ashwood. The resurrection must be 
not only with a renewed but with a transformed 
mind, if it were to bring happiness, and to bring no 
more of things like that. 

The world at large, conceiving that the last word 
had been said and the last scene in which it was in- 
terested played, had soon turned its curious eyes 
away from Quisante’s sick bed, leaving only the 
gaze of the smaller circle personally concerned in 
the dull and long-drawn-out ending of a piece once 
so full of dramatic incident. But the world found 
itself wrong, and all the eyes spun round in amazed 
staring when the sick man leapt from his bed and 
declared that he was himself again. The news 
came in paragraphs, to the effect that after an- 
other week’s rest Mr. Quisante, whose health had 
made a rapid and great improvement, hoped to re- 
turn to his Parliamentary duties and to fulfil the 
more urgent of his public engagements. Here was 
matter enough for surprise, but it was needful to 
add the fast-following well- authenticated stories of 
how the doctors had protested, how Sir Rufus 
Beaming had washed his hands of the case, and 
how Dr. Claud Manton had addressed an ener- 
getic warning to Lady May Quisante. This last 
item came home most closely to the general feel- 
ing, and the general voice asked what Lady May 
was thinking of. There was warrant for the ques- 
tion in the wondering despair of Lady Mildmay 
329 


QUISANTE 

and the sad embarrassment of debonair Sir Winter- 
ton. The Mildmays knew all about it, the whole 
thing had happened in their house ; but Sir Win- 
terton, challenged with the story about Sir Rufus, 
could only hum and ha, and Lady Mildmay had 
not denied the interview between Quisante ’s wife 
and the energetic Dr. Manton. What was the 
meaning of it? And, once again, what was Lady 
May Quisante thinking of? Was she blind, was 
she careless ? Or were the doctors idiots ? The 
world, conscious of its own physical frailty, shrank 
from the last question and confined its serious at- 
tention to the two preceding ones. “Does she 
want to kill him ? ” asked the honest graspers of 
the obvious. “ Does she think him above all laws ? ” 
was the question of those who wished to be more 
subtle. At least she was a puzzle. All agreed on 
that. 

Lady Richard discountenanced all speculation 
and all questionings. For her part she did her 
duty, mentioning to Mrs. Baxter that this was 
what she meant to do and that, whatever happened, 
she intended to be able, salva conscientia , to tell 
herself that she had done it ; Mrs. Baxter approved, 
saying that this was what the second Mrs. Green- 
ing had done when her husband’s sister’s daughter, 
a very emancipated young woman as it seemed, had 
incomprehensibly flirted with the auctioneer’s ap- 
prentice and had scouted Mrs. Greening’s control ; 
Mrs. Greening had told the girl’s mother and sent 
the girl home, second class, under the care of the 
330 


FOR LACK OF LOVE? 


guard. Similarly then Lady Richard, without 
embarking on any consideration of ultimate prob- 
lems, wrote to May, suggesting that Mr. Quisante 
wanted rest and putting Ashwood at her disposal 
for so long as she and her husband might be pleased 
to occupy it. “ If they don’t choose to go, it’s not 
my fault,” said Lady Richard with the sigh which 
declares that every reasonable requirement of con- 
science has been fulfilled. Happy lady, to be able 
to repose in this conviction by the simple expe- 
dient of lending a house not otherwise required at 
the moment ! So kind are we to our own actions 
that Lady Richard felt meritorious. 

They chose to go, and went unaccompanied save 
by their baby girl and Aunt Maria — this last a 
strange addition made at Quisante ’s own request. 
He had not been wont to show such a desire for 
the old lady’s society when there was nothing to 
be gained by seeking it ; nor had it seemed to May 
altogether certain that Miss Quisante would come. 
Yet she came with ardent eagerness and her nephew 
was plainly glad to have her. It took May a little 
while to understand why, but soon she saw the 
reason. Aunt Maria was deep in the conspiracy, or 
the infatuation, or whatever it was to be called ; 
she flattered Quisant^’s hope of life, she applauded 
his defiance of the inevitable ; she hung on him 
more and more, herself forgetting and making him 
forget the peril of the way he trod. He wanted to 
be told that he was right, and he wanted an ap- 
plauding audience. In both ways Aunt Maria 
331 


QUISANTE 

satisfied him. She would talk of the present as 
though it were no more than a passing interruption 
of a long career, of the future as though it stretched 
in assured leisure through years of great achieve- 
ment, of his life and his life’s work as though both 
were in his own hand and subject to nothing save his 
own will and power. She was to him the readiest 
echo of the world’s wonder and applause, the read- 
iest assurance that his great effort was not going 
unrecognised. Hence he would have her with him, 
though there seemed no more love and no more 
tenderness between them than when in old days 
they had quarrelled and he had grumbled and she 
had flung him her money with a bitter jeer. But 
she lived in him and could think of him only as 
living, and through her he could cheat himself into 
an assurance that indeed he could live and work. 

Then Aunt Maria was very bad for him. That 
could not be denied, but something more nearly 
touching herself pressed on May Quisante. She 
had seen the Mildmays’ painful puzzle; she had 
listened to Dr. Claud Manton’s energetic warning; 
it was before her, no less than before the patient, 
that Sir Rufus had washed his hands. She was 
not ignorant of the questions the world asked. 
She was not careless, nor was she any longer the 
dupe of her old delusion that such a man as Qui- 
sante could not die. Her eye for truth had con- 
quered; now she believed that, if he persisted in 
his rebellion, he must surely die; unless all medi- 
cal knowledge went for nothing, he would surely 
332 


FOR LACK OF LOVE? 

die, and die not after long years of lingering, but 
soon, perhaps very soon. A moment of excite- 
ment, say one of the moments that she had loved 
so much, might kill him ; so Claud Manton said. 
A life of excitement would surely and early do the 
work. And why was he rebellious ? She accused 
himself, she accused Aunt Maria, she accused the 
foolishly wondering, foolishly chattering world ; and 
in every accusation there was some justice. Was 
there enough to acquit the other defendant who 
stood arraigned? To that she dared not answer 
“ Yes,” because of the fear which was in her that 
the strongest amongst all the various impulses 
driving him to his defiance was in the end to be 
found in his relations to her, in the attitude of his 
own wife towards him. Ashwood was full of asso- 
ciations; there was Duty Hill, where he had risen 
to his greatest and thereby won her; there was the 
tree beneath which she had sat with Marchmont 
on the evening when the knowledge of her hus- 
band’s worst side had been driven like a sharp knife 
into her very heart. But more vivid than these 
memories now was the recollection of that first 
evening when she had seen him sitting alone, no- 
body’s friend, and had determined to be human 
towards him and to treat him in a human way. 
There had been the true beginning of her great ex- 
periment. Now she told herself that she had failed 
in it, had never been human to him, and had never 
treated him in a human way, had not been what a 
man’s wife should be, had stood always outside, a 
22 333 


QUISANTE 


follower, an admirer, a critic, an accuser, never sim- 
ply the woman who was his wife. His fault or 
hers, or that of both — it seemed to matter little. 
The experiment had been hers; and because she 
had made it and failed, it seemed to her that he 
was braving death. Had she been different, per- 
haps he would not have rebelled and could have 
lived the quiet life with her. It needed little more 
to make her tell herself that she drove him to his 
death, that she was with the enemy, with the chat- 
tering world and with poor deluded old Aunt Maria ; 
she was of the conspirators ; she egged him on to 
brave his doom. 

In darker vein still ran her musings sometimes, 
when there came over her that haunting self-dis- 
trust, the fear that she was juggling with herself, 
shutting her eyes to the sin of her own heart, and, 
in spite of all her protestations, was really inspired 
by a secret hope too black and treacherous to put 
in words. However passionately she repudiated it, 
it still cried mockingly, “ I am here ! ” It asked if 
her prayers for her husband’s life were sincere, if 
her care for him were more than a due paid to 
decency, if the doom were in truth a thing she 
dreaded, and not a deliverance which convention 
alone forbade her openly to desire. Plainly, plainly 
— did she wish the doom to fall, did she wish him 
dead, was the rebellion that threatened death the 
course which the secret craving of her heart urged 
him to take ? To do everything for him was not 
enough, if the doubt still lurked that her heart was 
334 


FOR LACK OF LOVE? 


not in the doing. For now she could no more ask 
coolly what she wished ; the thing had come too 
near; it was odious to have a thought except of 
saving him by all means and at every cost ; it was 
intolerable not to know at least that no part of the 
impulse which drove him to his rebellion lay at her 
door, not to feel at least that she had nothing but 
dread and horror for the threatened doom. She 
had no love for him; it came home to her now 
with a strange new sense of self-condemnation ; she 
had married him for her own pleasure, because he 
interested her and made life seem dull without him. 
She pleaded no more that he had killed her love ; it 
had never been there to kill. Had she left him to 
find a woman who loved him in and for himself, 
not for his doings, not for the interest of him, that 
woman might now be winning him by love from 
the open jaws of death. 

Yet again laughter, obstinate and irrepressible, 
shot often in a jarring streak of inharmonious 
colour across the sombre fabric of her thoughts. 
He was not only mad, not only splendid — he 
seemed both to her — he was absurd too at mo- 
ments, often when he was with Aunt Maria. Let- 
ters came in great numbers, from political fol- 
lowers, from women prominent in society, from 
constituents, from old Foster and Japhet Williams 
at Henstead, even from puissant Lady Castlefort; 
they wondered, applauded, implored, flattered, in 
every key of that sweet instrument called praise. 
Quisantd read them out, pluming and preening his 
335 


QUISANTE 

feathers, strutting about, crowing. He would re- 
peat the passages he liked, asking his wife’s appro- 
bation; that he must have, it seemed. She gave 
it with what heartiness she could, and laughed 
only in her sleeve. Surely a man facing death 
could have forgotten all this? Not Alexander 
Quisante. He could die, and die bravely ; but the 
world must stand by his bedside. So till the end, 
whenever that most uncertainly dated end might 
come, the old mixture promised to go on, the great 
and small, the mean and grand, the call for tears 
and throbs of the heart alternating with the 
obstinate curling or curving of lips swift to re- 
spond to the vision of the contemptible or the 
ludicrous. 

But she had her appeal to make, the one thing, it 
seemed, she could do to put herself at all in the 
right, the offer she must make, and try to make 
with a sincerity which should rise unimpaired from 
the conflicts of her heart. She had caught at com- 
ing to Ashwood because she thought she could 
make it best there, not indeed in the room where 
she had lied for him, nor by the tree where she had 
turned to Marchmont in a pang of wild regret, but 
there, on Duty Hill, where he had won her, had 
touched his highest, and had seemed a conqueror. 
She took him there, climbing with him very slowly, 
very gently; there she made him sit and sat by 
him. Again it was a quiet evening, and still the 
valley stretched below ; nothing changed here 
made all the changes of her life seem half unreal. 

336 


FOR LACK OF LOVE? 


Here she told him he must live, he must be docile 
and must live. 

“ You may get strong again, but for the time you 
must do as the doctors say. You ought to; for 
the little girl’s sake, if for nothing else, you ought 
to. You know you’re risking another seizure now, 
and you know what that might mean.” 

His eyes were fixed keenly on her, though he lay 
back motionless in weariness. 

“You ought to live for your daughter.” She 
paused a minute and added, “ And some day we 
might have a son, and you’d live again in him ; we 
both should; we should feel that we were doing — 
that you were doing — everything he did. I think 
your son would be a great man, and I should be 
proud to be his mother. Isn’t the hope of that 
worth something ? ” 

He was silent, watching her closely still. 

“ I know what you think of me,” she continued. 
“You think an active life essential to me, that I 
can’t do without it. God knows I loved all you 
did, I loved your triumphs, I loved to hear you 
speak and see them listen. You know I loved all 
that, loved it too much perhaps. But I’ll do with- 
out it. I’m your wife, your fate’s mine. It’ll be 
the braver thing for you to face it, really ; I’m ready 
to face it with you.” 

Still he would only look at her. 

“We know what we both are,” she went on with 
a little smile. “ W e’re not Mildmays, you and I. 
But let’s try. I must tell you. I can’t bear to 
337 


QUISANTE 

think that it’s partly at least because of me that you 
won’t try, that if I were a different sort of woman 
it might be much easier for you to try. If it’s that 
at all, imagine what I should feel if — if anything 
happened such as the doctors are afraid of.” 

“ I’ve chosen my course. I believe the doctors 
are all wrong.” 

“ Do you really believe that? ” she asked quickly. 

He shrugged his shoulders, seeming to say that 
he would not discuss it. “ A great many consid- 
erations influence me,” he said with a touch of 
pompousness. 

“ Am I one of them? ” she persisted. “ Because 
I don’t want to be. I’m ready to share your life, 
whatever it is.” 

“ Are you ? ” he asked, with something of the 
same malicious smile that he was wont to bestow 
on Aunt Maria. “ Do you think you could share 
my life ? Do you think you have ? ” 

“ I know what you mean,” she said, flushing a 
little. “ I daresay I’ve been hard and — and didn’t 
take the pains to understand, and was uncharitable 
perhaps. Anyhow there’ll be no opportunity for any 
more — any more misunderstandings of that sort.” 

“No; the understanding’s clear enough now,” 
said he. 

She looked at him almost despairingly ; he seemed 
so strangely hostile, so bitterly sensitive to her 
judgment of him. 

“You think me,” he went on, with his persistent 
eyes unwaveringly set on her, “ a not over-honest 
338 


FOR LACK OF LOVE? 

mountebank ; that’s what you and your friends 
think me.” 

“ Oh, I wish I’d never tried to talk to you about 
it ! ” she cried. “ You take hold of some hasty 
mood or look of mine and treat it as if it were 
everything. You know it isn’t.” 

“ It’s there, though.” 

“ It never need be, never, never.” 

‘‘You’ll forget it all when we’re settled down at 
— where was it? — Torquay or somewhere — in our 
villa, like two old tabby-cats sitting in the sun? 
No time to think it all over then? No, only all 
the hours of every day ! ” He paused and then 
added in a low hard voice, “I’m damned if I’ll do it. 
I may have to die, but I’ll die standing.” His eyes 
gleamed now, and for the first time they turned 
from her and roamed over the prospect that lay 
below Duty Hill. But they were back on her face 
soon. 

“No, no,” she implored. “Not because of me, 
for heaven’s sake, not because of me! ” 

“ Because of it all. Yes, and because of you too. 
You don’t love me, you never have.” He leant 
towards her. “ But I love you,” he said, “ yes, as 
I loved you when I asked you to be my wife on 
this hill where we are. Then don’t you under- 
stand? I won’t go and live that old cat’s life with 
you.” He laid his hand on hers. “ Your eyes shall 
still sparkle for me, your breath shall still come 
quick for me, your heart beat for me; or I’ll have 
no more of it at all.” 


339 


QUISANTE 

The touch of rhetoric, so characteristic of him, 
so unlike anything that Marchmont or Dick Ben- 
yon would have used in such a case, did not dis- 
please her then. And it hit the truth as his pene- 
tration was wont to hit it. That was what he 
wanted, that was what she could and should and 
must give, or he would have nothing from her. 
Here was the truth ; but the truth was what she 
had struggled so hard to deny and feared so terribly 
to find true. He was not indeed led by a sense of 
obligation towards her; the need was for himself. 
It was not that he felt in her a right to call on him 
for exertions or for a performance of his side of the 
bargain ; it was that he could not bear to lose his 
tribute from her. But still she stood self-condemned. 
Again the thought came — with a woman who loved 
him there might have been another tribute that she 
could have paid and he been content to levy. He 
would have believed such a woman if she told him 
that he would be as much to her, and she as much 
absorbed in him, in the villa at Torquay as ever in 
the great world ; and perhaps — oh, only perhaps, it 
is true — he would have made shift with that and 
fed his appetite on the homage of one, since his 
wretched body denied him the rows on rows of ap- 
plauding spectators that he loved. But from his 
wife’s lips he would not accept any such assurance, 
and from her no such homage could be hoped for 
to solace him. 

Then the strange creature began to talk to her, 
not of what he had done, nor even of what he had 
340 


FOR LACK OF LOVE? 


hoped to do, but of what he meant and was going 
to do ; how he would grow greater and richer, of 
schemes in politics and in business, of the fervour 
and devotion of the fighting men behind him and 
how they were sick of the old gang and would have 
no leader but Alexander Quisante ; of the prosperity 
of the Alethea, how the shares rose, how big orders 
came in., how utterly poor old Maturin had blun- 
dered. He spoke like a strong man with a wealth 
of years and store-houses of force, who sees life 
stretched long before him, material to be shaped by 
his hand and forced into what he will make it. He 
talked low and fast, his eyes again roaming over the 
prospect ; the evening fell while he still talked. 
Almost it seemed then that the doctors were wrong, 
that his courage was no folly, that indeed he would 
not die. O for the faith to believe that ! For his 
spell was on her again now, and now she would not 
have him die. Once again he had his desire ; once 
more her heart beat and her eyes gleamed for him. 
But then it came on her, with a sudden fierce light 
of conviction, that all this was hollow, useless, vain, 
that the sentence was written and the doom pro- 
nounced. No pleading however eloquent could 
alter it. Quisante was stopped in mid-career by a 
short sharp sob that escaped from his wife’s lips. 
He turned and looked at her, breaking off the sen- 
tence that he had begun. She met his glance with 
a frightened look in her eyes. 

“ What’s the matter ? ” he asked slowly, rather 
resentfully. 


QUISANTE 

“ Nothing, nothing,” she stammered. “ I — I was 
excited by what you were saying.” She tried to 
laugh. “I’m emotional, you know, and you can 
always rouse my emotions.” 

“ Was it that ? ” For a moment longer he sat up- 
right, looking hard at her ; then his body relaxed, 
and he lay back, his lower lip dropping and his eyes 
half closed. An expression of great weariness and 
despair came over him. He had read the meaning 
of her sob ; and now he hid his face in his hands. 
His pretences failed him, and he was assailed by 
the bitterness of truth and of death. 

She rose, saying, “ It’s late, we must go in ; you’ll 
be over-tired.” 

After an instant Quisante rose slowly and falter- 
ingly; he laid his arm in hers, and they stood side 
by side, gazing down into the valley. This hill had 
come to mean much in their lives, and somehow 
now they seemed to be saying good-bye to it. 

“ I could never forget this hill,” she said, “ any 
more than I could forget you. You told me just 
now that I didn’t love you. Well, as you mean it, 
perhaps not. But you’ve been almost everything in 
the world to me. Everything in the world isn’t all 
good, but it’s — everything.” She turned to him 
suddenly and kissed him on the cheek. “ Lean on 
me as we go down the hill,” she said. There was 
pity and tenderness in the words and the tone. But 
Quisante drew his arm sharply away and braced his 
body to uprightness. 

“ I’m not tired. I can go quite well by myself. 

342 


FOR LACK OF LOVE? 


You look more tired than I do, ” he said. “Come, 
we shall be late,” and he set off down the hill at a 
brisk pace. 

Her appeal then had failed ; this last little incident 
told her that with unpitying plainness. If he had 
yielded for a moment before the face of reality, he 
soon recovered himself, turned away from the sight, 
and went back to his masquerading. She lacked 
the power to lead him from it, and again she feared 
that she lacked the power because her will was not 
sincere and single. Now they must go on to that 
uncertain end, he playing his part before the world, 
before her and Aunt Maria, she looking on, some- 
times in admiration, sometimes in contempt, always 
in fear of the moment when the actors speeches 
would be suddenly cut short and the curtain, falling 
on the interrupted scene, hide him for ever from the 
audience whom he had made wondering applauding 
partners in his counterfeit. The last of his life was 
to be like the rest of it, with the same elements of 
tragedy and of farce, of what attracted and of what 
revolted, of the great and the little. It was to be 
like in another way too ; it was to be lived alone, 
without any true companion for his soul, without 
the love that he had not asked except of one, and, 
asking of that one, had not obtained. As the days 
went on, the fascination of the spectacle she watched 
grew on her ; it was more poignant now than in the 
former time, and it filled all her life. Thus in some 
sort Alexander Quisante had his way ; his hold on 
her was not relaxed, his dominion over her not ab- 
343 


QUISANTE 

rogated, to the end of his life he would be what she 
told him he had been — almost everything. When 
the end came, what would he be ? The question 
crossed her thoughts, but found no answer ; some 
day it would fall to be answered. Now she could 
only watch and wait, half persuaded that the pre- 
tence was no pretence, yet always dreading the 
summons of reality to end the play. So the world 
asked in vain what May Quisante was thinking of, 
whether she wanted to kill him, or whether she 
thought him above all laws. A puzzle to the world 
and a puzzle to her friends, she waited for the fall- 
ing of the blow which Quisante daily challenged. 

Sir Rufus Beaming met Dr. Claud Manton at the 
Athenaeum and showed him a newspaper paragraph. 

“ To address a great meeting at Henstead ! ” said 
Manton, raising his brows and shaping his lips for a 
whistle. “ ‘ From his own and neighbouring con- 
stituencies.’ ” 

“ He might just as well take chloroform comfort- 
ably by his fireside,” said Sir Rufus. “ It would be 
a little quicker, perhaps, but not a bit more sure.” 

And again they washed their hands of the whole 
affair very solemnly. 


344 


CHAPTER XIX 


DEATH DEFIED 

Constantine Blair, no less active and soon little 
less serene in opposition than in power, felt himself 
more than justified in all that he had ever said 
about W eston Marchmont when he received an in- 
timation of Marchmont’s intention to apply for the 
Chiltern Hundreds. Yet he was aghast at this 
voluntary retirement into the wilderness of private 
life, a life without bustle, without gossip, without 
that sense of being intimate with the march of 
affairs and behind the scenes of the national theatre. 
There were reasons assigned, of course. One was 
that Marchmont found himself (“I’ll bet he does ! ” 
groaned Constantine with anticipatory resignation) 
more in agreement with the other side than with 
his own on an important question of foreign politics 
then to the front. But this state of matters had 
ceased to be unusual with him and hardly in itself 
accounted for the step he was now taking. The 
care of his estate was the second reason, properly 
dismissed as plainly frivolous. In the end of the 
letter more sincerity peeped out, as the writer 
lapsed from formality into friendship. “ I know I 
shall surprise many people and grieve some, but 
I’m sick of the thing. I can’t endure the perpetual 
haggling between what I ought to do and what I’m 


QUISANTE 

expected to do; the compromises that result satisfy 
me as little as anybody. In fine, my dear Con- 
stantine, I’m going back to my pictures, my books, 
my hills, and my friends.” Constantine read with 
a genuine sorrow and criticised with a contemptuous 
sniff. Pictures, books — and hills! Hills! It was 
insulting his intelligence. And though friends 
were all very well, yet where was the use of them 
if a man deprived himself of all the sources of en- 
tertaining conversation? But there was nothing 
to be done — except to tell Lady Castlefort a day 
before the rest of the world knew. Constantine 
held her favour on that tenure. She showed no 
surprise. 

“ A loss to the country, but not to us,” she said. 

“ Just what I think,” agreed Constantine, with a 
revival of cheerfulness. 

“ If 1 hadn’t known him since he was so high, 
I’d wish he had the what-do-you-call-it seizures in- 
stead of the other man.” 

“ But Quisante’s not going, he means to hold on,” 
said Constantine. “I’m glad of it. Henstead’s 
very shaky. But we shall hold Marchmont’s seat 
all right. We’re going to put up Dick Benyon.” 

“ He’s safe enough, he won’t worry you,” said 
Lady Castlefort. “ Y ou’ll have to fight Henstead be- 
fore long, all the same. The man’ll die, you know.” 

“ Think so ? ” asked Constantine uneasily. 

“ And he will be a loss — a loss to us, whatever 
one may think about the country.” Constantine 
looked troubled. “ Oh, it’s not your business to 

346 


DEATH DEFIED 


think about the country — or mine either, thank 
goodness,” she added rather irritably. She was 
more distressed about Weston Marchmont than 
she chose to tell ; and it was impossible not to be 
annoyed at the perversity. Of the two men whom 
she had singled out for greatness one might go on 
but would not, the other asked nothing but to be 
allowed to go on, and found refusal at the hands of 
fate. There was another thing in her thoughts too. 
She had a strong belief in hostesses, natural to her, 
perhaps not unreasonable. In either of two events 
she had foreseen an ideal hostess for the party in 
the woman she still thought of as May Gaston. 
There was no need to detail the two events ; suffice 
it to say that, whichever of them now happened, it 
appeared that May Gaston would not be able to 
figure as a great hostess ; at least there would have 
to rise for her some star not yet visible in the 
heavens. 

Marchmont and May had neither met nor writ- 
ten to one another since their talk under the tree at 
Ashwood. He had not doubted that she would 
understand silence and like silence best ; from him 
any word seemed impossible. But on the day when 
his determination was made public he received a 
summons from her and at once obeyed it. He 
found her alone, though she told him that she 
expected Quisante back from the City in a little 
while. 

“ He wants to see you,” she said. “ I don’t know 
why, unless it’s just as a curiosity.” She smiled for 
347 


QUISANTE 

a moment. “ I’m sorry you find you can’t stand 
it,” she went on. 

“You understand? You’ve been in that state 
of mind or pretty near it, I know.” 

“ Yes, pretty near at times, but I’m not as honest 
as you. I may see all you see, but I should always 
go on. ” She glanced at him. “ I’m more like my 
husband than I’m like you,” she ended. 

“ I don’t believe that,” he said gravely. 

“ I know you don’t, but it’s true. I daresay you 
never will understand it, because of the other May 
Gaston you’ve made for yourself. But it’s true. 
And you know what he is. He’s ready to give 
body and soul — Oh, I’m not just using a phrase — 
body and soul to keep the things that you’ve given 
up for your hills. How scornful your hills made 
Constantine Blair ! ” 

“ Are you importing metaphorical meanings into 
my hills ? ” he asked, sitting down near her. 

“ Yes,” she answered. “ Mr. Blair didn’t, but I 
do.” 

“ Perhaps it was rather a silly thing to say.” 

“No, I don’t think so.” 

“ I mean to Constantine.” 

“ Oh, well then, perhaps it was,” she admitted, 
smiling. “ But that’s all consistent, isn’t it ? You 
couldn’t trim your sails to suit the breeze even in a 
letter like that.” 

“ Are you rebuking me ? Are you contemptu- 
ous ? What are you ? ” He leant back and looked 
at her, smiling. 


348 


DEATH DEFIED 


“ If my husband would do what you’ve done, he 
might live,” she said. 

Marchmont nodded gravely ; it was easy to see 
the odd way in which his action fitted into the 
drama of her life. 

“ But we’ve no hills,” she went on. “ You leave 
London — all London means — to wander on hills, 
high glorious hills ; he’d leave it for a villa, a small 
villa at a seaside place.” 

“ Metaphors again ? ” 

‘ ‘ It comes easier to talk in them sometimes. 
And I — I’m of my husband’s way of thinking.” 

“ I don’t believe it,” he said again, but looking at 
her now with a little touch of doubt. 

“You’ll never come back, will you? ” she asked. 

“ Never,” said he with a quiet certainty. 

She rose with a restless sigh and walked to the 
fireplace. 

“ I couldn’t,” he went on. “ I’m not fit for it ; 
that’s the end of the matter. Use your own term 
of abuse. I shall hear plenty of them.” 

“I don’t want to abuse you,” she said. She 
walked quickly over to him, gave him her hand for 
a moment, and then returned to her place. “ But 
it makes me feel rather strange to you.” She 
looked full at him with a plain distress in her eyes, 
and her voice shook a little. “ I’m coming to feel 
more strange towards you,” she went on. “ I 
thought we had got nearer at Ashwood. We 
did for the moment. But now I’m farther off 
again.” 


QUISANTE 

“ I would have you always very near,” he said in 
low tones, his eyes saying more than his lips. 

44 1 know. And perhaps you’ve had thoughts — ” 
She paused before she added, 44 Alexander’s quite 
set on his course, nothing will stop him — except 
the thing that I expect to stop him. You know 
what I mean ? ” 

Marchmont nodded again. 

44 And he’s doing it a good deal because of me. I 
wonder if you understand that? ” 

44 1 don’t know that I do.” 

44 No ; he knows more of me than you do.” 

She became silent, and he, watching her, was 
silent too. What was this strangeness of which she 
spoke? He felt it too but without understanding 
it. It caused in him a vague discomfort, an appre- 
hension that some obstacle was between them, some- 
thing more than any external hindrance, a thing 
which might perhaps remain though all external 
hindrance were removed. Her last words both 
puzzled and wounded him with their implication of 
a deeper sympathy between Quisante and herself 
than existed or could exist between her and him. 
That he did not understand, and could not without 
giving up his own idea of her, the May Gaston 
which, as she said, he had made for himself. Was 
his image gone indeed? Had Alexander Quisante’s 
chisel altered the features beyond recognition and 
till true identity was gone ? Yet Alexander Qui- 
sante was the man who had put on her the shame 
for which she had sobbed under the tree on that 
350 


DEATH DEFIED 


evening at Ashwood. Before such a seeming con- 
tradiction his penetration stood baffled. She had 
said then that her present life would, she supposed, 
go on right to the end, and had said it as though 
the prospect were unendurable ; now a new and to 
him unnatural resignation seemed to have come 
upon her, just when her present life had shown that 
it was not likely to go on right to the end. 

4 4 I’ve prayed my husband to give up,” she said, 
44 1 don’t beg you not to give up. To begin with, 
you wouldn’t listen to me any more than he did. 
And then, I suppose, you’re right for yourself.” 

44 You’re about the only person who’ll say so.” 

44 1 daresay. I’ve learnt about you in learning 
about myself. And I can feel it just as you do — 
Oh, how intolerably strongly sometimes ! ” She 
added with a smile, 44 We’ve only just missed suit- 
ing one another,” and then, 44 Yes, but we have 
missed, you know.” 

44 1 don’t believe it,” he persisted, struggling to 
throw off the new doubt she was thrusting into his 
mind. His thought was that, once she got free of 
her husband, she would indeed be his. That he 
must hold to. It was Quisante, not she herself, 
who made her now feel strange to him; and Qui- 
sante ’s spell was not to last; her quiet certitude 
that her husband’s days were numbered carried 
conviction to him also. 44 But I won’t talk any 
more about it now,” he said. 

44 No, it seems inhuman,” she agreed. 44 1 spend 
all my days cheating myself into a hope that he’ll 
351 


QUISANTE 

get better. I know you don’t like him, but if you 
lived with him as I do, you’d come to hope as I do. 
Yes, in spite of all you know about us ; and you 
know more than anybody alive. I’ve not been so — 
so disloyal — to anybody else.” She smiled as she 
quoted the word against him. 

“ One must admire him,” said Marchmont. 

May Quisante laughed at his tone almost scorn- 
fully. “ The way you say that shows how little you 
understand,” she exclaimed. “ It’s not a bit like 
that.” She took a step nearer to him. “ When it 
comes,” she said slowly, “ I sha’n’t shed a single tear, 
but I shall feel that my life’s over. He’ll have had 
it all.” 

“ God forbid you should feel anything like that,” 
he said, looking up at her. 

She laughed again, asking bitterly, “ Does God 
forbid what Alexander wants — except one thing ? 
And what I tell you is what he would want. He 
would want to have had it all.” 

He raised his hand in protest. 

“ You’re right ; we won’t talk any more,” she said. 
“ But don’t think that it’s all only because I’m over- 
wrought, or something feminine of that kind. It’s 
the truth. When it comes, Aunt Maria’ll die and I 
shall live ; but the difference won’t be as great as it 
sounds.” 

This time he was about to speak, but she 
stopped him, saying, “No, no more now. Tell 
me about Dick Benyon. He’s to have your seat, 
isn’t he ? ” 


352 


DEATH DEFIED 


“ Yes, I’m gathered to my fathers, and Dick 
reigns in my stead.” 

44 You’re sorry ? ” she asked, forgetting Dick and 
coming back again to the man before her. 

44 Yes; but I accept the inevitable and contrive 
to be quite cheerful about it.” 

44 We don’t do either of those things. Hark, I 
hear my husband’s step.” 

Quisante ran quickly up the stairs and burst into 
the room. His face was alight with animation, and 
before greeting Marchmont he cried, 44 I’ve carried 
it, I’ve brought them round. We attack all along 
the line, and I open the ball at Henstead next 
week ! They’ll be out in six months, and I shall — ” 
Suddenly he paused. 44 They’ll be out in six 
months,” he said again. 

Marchmont rose and shook hands, 44 It doesn’t 
matter to me now if they are,” he said, laughing. 
44 Blair’s troubles and mine are both over now.” 

44 1 know,” nodded Quisante. 44 Well, I sup- 
pose you know best. But hasn’t May been trying 
to convert you ? ” 

44 No, I haven’t tried to convert him,” she said. 
44 I’m not going to try to convert people any 
more.” 

After this she fell into silence, listening and 
watching while the two men talked. Talk be- 
tween them could never be intimate and could 
hardly be even easy, but they interested one an- 
other to-day. On Quisante’s face especially there 
was a look of searching, of wonder, of a kind of 
353 


QUISANTE 

protest. Once he flung himself back and stared at 
his guest with a fixity of gaze painful to see. But 
he said nothing of what was passing in his mind. 
At last Marchmont turned to May again. 

“ I shall hear of you at Henstead,” he said. 
“ I’m going to pay the Mildmays a visit. I sup- 
pose, as you’re on the war-path, you won’t come 
over ? ” 

“I might,” she said, “if we were there long 
enough. I expect Alexander mustn’t. Friend- 
ship with the enemy is not always appreciated.” 

“Oh, I might go,” Quisante remarked. “The 
Alethea’s an admirable excuse.” He spoke with a 
laugh but then, glancing at his wife, saw her face 
flush. He turned to Marchmont and found him 
rising to his feet. Much puzzled, Quisante looked 
again from one to the other, noting the sudden 
constraint that had fallen on them. What had he 
said ? What was there in the mention of the 
Alethea to disturb a conversation so harmonious ? 
That there was something his quick wit told him 
in a moment. While Marchmont said good-bye 
to May he stood by, frowning a little, and then 
escorted his guest downstairs. While he was 
away his wife stood quite still in the middle of 
the room, a little flushed and breathing rather 
quickly. 

Quisante came back, sat down, and took up a 
newspaper. May sat in her usual chair, doing 
nothing. Presently he asked, “Did I say any- 
thing wrong ? ” 


354 


DEATH DEFIED 


“No. But I’d rather you didn’t talk about the 
Alethea when Mr. Marchmont is with us.” He 
looked up in surprise. “ It embarrasses me — and 
him too.” 

“ Embarrasses you ? Why should it ? ” 

“ There’s no use in my telling you.” 

“ I can’t see why it should embarrass you. Pray 
tell me.” 

She sat silent for a moment or two. “It’s no 
good,” she said, looking over to him with a forlorn 
smile. He moved his hand impatiently. “Very 
well. At dinner at Ashwood, on the night you 
were taken ill, somebody talked about the Alethea 
and said Professor Maturin had told him there was 
a fatal defect in it. He hadn’t seen the pro- 
spectus. And I ” She paused a moment. “ I 

had to back up your version.” Again she broke 
off for a moment. “ And after dinner Mr. March- 
mont talked to me ; and I cried about it. So, you 
see, references are embarrassing.” 

After a pause of a minute or two Quisantd said, 
“ Cried about it ? About what ? ” 

She raised her eyes, looked at him a moment, 
and said simply, “ About having to tell a lie to 
them.” And she added with a sudden quiver in 
her voice, “ I’ve known them all my life.” 

“ Maturin was quite wrong. There’s absolutely 
no doubt about that now.” 

“Was he ? ” she asked listlessly. 

“ What did you say ? ” 

“ That he’d expressed a favourable opinion 
355 


QUISANTE 

about it to you. I kept to the prospectus. Oh, 
there’s no use talking. It’s only with Mr. March- 
mont that it matters. I can’t keep it up before 
him, because he found me crying, you know.” 

“ Crying ! ” murmured Quisante. “ Crying ! ” 
She nodded at him, with the same faint smile on 
her lips. The silence seemed very long as she 
looked at him and he gazed straight before him, 
the forgotten paper falling with a rustle from his 
knees on to the floor. 

“ You never told me,” he said at last. 

“ Why should I ? What was the good of telling 
you ? ” 

“ It was on the night of my — when I was taken 
ill?” 

“Yes. The telegram came later in the evening. 
Don’t bother about it now, Alexander.” 

“ Did you hope it meant I was dead? ” 

For a moment she sat still ; then she sprang up, 
ran across the room, and fell on her knees before 
him, grasping his arms in her hands. “ No, no, no, 
I didn’t. Indeed, indeed, I didn’t.” 

He sat still in her clasp, looking intently in 
her face. His was hard and sneering. 

“Yes, you did. You wished me dead. By 
God, you wish me dead now. Well, you can 
wait a little. I shall be dead soon.” With a 
sudden rough movement he freed himself from 
her hands and pushed her away. “ I suppose 
wives often wish their husbands dead, but they 
don’t tell them so quite so plainly.” 

356 


DEATH DEFIED 


“ It s not true, I’ve never told you so.” 

“ Oh, I’m not a fool. I don’t need to have it 
spelt out for me in syllables.” 

She rose slowly to her feet, and, turning, went 
back to her own chair. Quisante sat where he 
was, quite motionless. She could not endure to 
look at him and, rising, went and stood by the 
window, looking out on the river she loved. This 
moment was in strange contrast with their talk on 
Duty Hill; the two together summed up her 
married life and the nature of the man she had 
married. But it was not true that she wished him 
dead ; not true now, at all events, even though 
the charge he brought against her of its having 
been so once might have some truth in it. For if 
ever that thought had crept into her mind as a 
dreaded shameful wish, it was when she seemed 
able to look forward to a new life. It seemed to 
her now that no new life was possible ; that im- 
pression had grown and grown while she talked 
with Weston Marchmont, and it pressed upon her 
now with the weight of conviction. 

She heard her husband get up and go out of the 
room ; his steps sounded going upstairs, in the di- 
rection of his study. She went and drew the chair 
up to the hearthrug, and sat down, resting her 
elbows on the arms and holding her head between 
her hands. It was very wanton that a chance allu- 
sion of his should have brought about this scene 
between them. Perhaps she could have put him 
off with excuses, but that had not occurred to her. 

357 


QUISANTE 

The scene had told her nothing new, but it had torn 
away the last of the veil from before his eyes. He 
had known that she disapproved, he had even braved 
her disapproval when he could not hoodwink or 
evade it. It was a little strange that he should be 
moved to such a transport of bitterness by hearing 
that she had cried over telling a lie for him. Yet 
that was it ; she was sure that he had not cared 
whether Marchmont saw her crying or not. The 
tears themselves made him think that she had 
wished him dead, yes, that she still wished him 
dead. 

He must not die thinking that. She started across 
the room towards the door, at a quick step ; it was 
in her mind to follow him and tell him again that 
it was not true, that he would ruin and empty her 
life if he died, that there was no man in the world 
who could be what he was to her. But her im- 
pulse failed her ; he would sneer again. There was 
one thing that would drive away his sneer if she 
said it and got him to believe it — that she loved him 
as he loved her. Well, she couldn’t tell him that, 
and he would not believe her if she did. She 
stopped and returned to her chair. She leant back 
now, resting her head on the cushion. The after- 
noon grew old, and a gleam of sinking sun, escaping 
from the grey red-edged clouds that hung over the 
river, troubled her eyes ; she closed them and re- 
clined in stillness. She felt very tired, worn out 
with the stress of it, with the conflict and the strain. 
Strange notions, half fancies, half dreams, began to 
358 


DEATH DEFIED 


flit through her mind. She saw the end come in 
many ways, now while they were alone together, 
now in some public place, even in the House, or 
while he addressed his shareholders. She seemed 
to hear the buzz of talk that followed the event, the 
wonder at him, the blame of her ; she saw poor old 
Aunt Maria’s trembling hands and hopeless face. 
Presently, as she fell into an unquiet drowsiness, she 
seemed to see even beyond the end, as though the 
end were no end and he were with her still, his spirit 
being about her, enveloping her, still wrapping her 
round so that the rest of the world was kept away 
and she was still with him, though she could not 
see him nor hear his voice. For her alone he ex- 
isted now. Soon the rest who had wondered and 
praised and blamed and gossipped forgot about 
him ; they had no more attention to give him, no 
more flattery, no more allegiance. For them he 
had ceased to exist. Only for her he went on exist- 
ing still, nay, it seemed that it was through her that 
he clung to the life he had loved, and was even now 
not dead because he lived in and through her. And 
sometimes — she shivered in her broken sleep, for 
she had not the love which would have made the 
dream all joy — he became more than a spirit or an 
impalpable presence ; he was again almost corporeal, 
almost to be felt and touched, almost a living man. 
Shrinking and fearing, yet she was glad ; she wel- 
comed his exemption from the grave and abetted 
him in his rebellion against death ; and for her that 
restless spirit almost clothed itself again in flesh. 


QUISANTE 

She sat up with a great start and a low cry. Her 
hand had been hanging over the arm of the chair. 
It had grown cold ; now it was held in another cold 
hand, and it was raised. Awake but thinking she 
still dreamed, she waited in mingled fear and 
anticipation. Cold bps pressed her hand. She 
dreamed then, and in her dream he came from the 
grave to kiss her hand. He came not only back to 
the world where he had triumphed, he came also to 
the woman he had loved, who had not loved him. 
Again the kiss came cold on her hand. She fell back 
with a sudden sob, not knowing whether terror or 
repulsion or joy, held greater sway in her. The 
kisses covered her hand. Ah, the marvel ! They 
grew living, they were warm now and passionate. 
This was not a dead man’s kiss. With a second cry 
she turned her head. Quisante himself knelt by her, 
kissing her hand. His eyes rose to hers, and she 
cried, “ It is you ! You’re not dead! Thank God, 
thank God!” 

His eyes were gleaming in the strong excitement 
of his heart ; he knew how he had found her. 

“ No, not dead, not dead yet,” he said. “ But by 
heaven, when I am dead, I won’t leave you. I 
can’t leave you. As I kiss your hand now, so will 
I kiss it always, and with my soul I will worship 
you. But neither now nor then will I kiss your 
lips.” 

“ You won’t kiss my lips ? ” 

“ No. They have lied for me ; 1 won’t stain them 
any more.” 


360 


DEATH DEFIED 


For a moment she looked at him. Then she 
caught her hand away and flung her arms round his 
neck. She kissed him on his lips, crying, “ For 
good or evil, for good or evil, but always, always, 
always ! ” Then she drew away, and, with her 
arms still round his neck, she broke into her low 
laugh : 44 Oh, but how like you to make that little 

speech about my lips ! ” 


361 


CHAPTER XX 


THE QUIET LIFE TO-MORROW 

Old Miss Quisante was not as sympathetic as 
might have been wished. She acquiesced indeed 
(as who would not?) in the new programme of at 
least a year’s complete rest; she offered to find 
funds — happily it was not necessary, since the sale 
of some Alethea shares at a handsome premium 
supplied them ; she admitted that May had done 
her duty in persuading her husband to yield a lim- 
ited obedience to his doctors’ orders. But she 
looked disappointed, uninterested, dull ; she awoke 
only for a sparkle of malice, when she remarked 
how happy they would be together in the country, 
with nothing to disturb them, nothing but just 
their two selves. 

“Not as unhappy as you think,” said May, smil- 
ing. 

“ All nonsense, I call it,” pursued the old lady. 
“ Sandro knew best ; now you’ve put notions into 
his head. Oh, I daresay you were bound to, my 
dear.” 

“ How can you be so blind? ” murmured May. 
Aunt Maria shook her head derisively ; she was not 
blind, it was the wife and the doctors who were 
blind. “You’re not to say that sort of thing to 
Alexander,” May went on imperiously. Aunt 
362 


THE QUIET LIFE TO-MORROW 


Maria put her head on one side and smiled sardon- 
ically. 

“ You used to agree with me,” she said. “ Has 
the Mildmay woman been here again? ” 

“No; she’s at home. We shall see her perhaps 
at Henstead.” 

“ Henstead ! What are you going there for? ” 

“And you said you knew Alexander!” laughed 
May. “You don’t suppose he’s going into retire- 
ment without a display of fireworks? The Hen- 
stead speech is to be made. Then we put up the 
shutters — for a year at least, as I say.” 

“ That’s something. Is he interested in it? ” 

“ Oh, yes, working all day. But he’s wonderfully 
well. I’ve never seen him better.” She hesitated 
and laughed a little. “ How shall we ever stick to 
our year? ” she asked. “ He means it now and I 
mean it. But ” 

“You won’t do it,” said Aunt Maria emphati- 
cally. “Nobody could keep Sandro quiet fora 
year ! ” 

“ Don’t tell me that. We’re going to try.” 

“Oh, I won’t interfere, my dear. Try away. 
After all he’ll be young still, and they won’t forget 
him in a year. Or if they do, he’ll soon make them 
remember him again.” 

The buoyant confidence was hard to resist. It 
seemed to grow greater in face of all reason, and 
more and more to fill the old woman’s mind as she 
herself descended towards the grave which she 
scorned as a possibility for Sandro. For now she 
363 


QUISANTE 

was very small and frail, thin and yellow ; she too, 
like her nephew, seemed to hold on to life rather 
because she chose of her arbitrary will, than thanks 
to any physical justification that she could adduce. 
Could Quisante not only make himself live but 
make Aunt Maria live too? Full of influence of 
that last great moment, May, laughing at herself, 
yet hesitated to answer “ No.” But the year was 
to be tried, lest, if die he must, he should die to 
please her or thinking that she wanted him to die. 
He did not think now that she wanted that; she 
was happier with him than she had ever been be- 
fore. She had found a new indulgence for him, 
even for what she had hated in him. Justice would 
have turned to harshness, clearness of vision to a 
Pharisaic strictness, had she not found indulgence 
for the man who had crept back to kiss her hand. 
She was very indulgent towards him, and he seemed 
happy, save that now and then he looked at her 
wistfully, and began to fall into the way of remind- 
ing her of past occasions when he had shone and 
she admired, asking whether she remembered this 
and that. He dropped hints too that the Henstead 
speech was to be memorable. She was a little 
afraid that already he was feeling indulgence in- 
sufficient and mere kindness, or indeed mere affec- 
tion, not the great thing that he asked of her, just 
as peace and quiet, or pictures, books, and hills, 
were not the things that he asked of life. If this 
were so, the compromise she had brought him to 
consent to was precarious ; it was, as she had hinted 
364 


THE QUIET LIFE TO-MORROW 


to Aunt Maria, doubtful whether they could stick 
to their year. 

There was another question in her mind, not less 
persistent, not less troubling. Perhaps the greater 
harmony between them, which had induced and 
enabled her to obtain that consent from him, was 
as precarious as the compromise itself; it too was 
liable to be overthrown by a return of Quisante’s old 
self, or at least of that side of him which was for 
the time hidden. The temptation to work would 
overthrow the compromise, the temptation to win 
might again produce action in him and impose 
action on her which would bring death to their 
newly-achieved harmony, even as exertion would to 
his worn-out body. 

The great speech, the last speech, was to be on 
Wednesday. They arrived in Henstead on Tues- 
day morning and were plunged at once into a tur- 
moil of business. There was a luncheon, a deputa- 
tion, a meeting of the party association; Japhet 
Williams had half a dozen difficulties, and old Fos- 
ter as many bits of shrewd counsel. Over all and 
through all was the air of congratulation, of relief 
from the fear of losing Quisant£, of enthusiastic ap- 
plause for his magnificently courageous struggle 
against illness and its triumphant issue. When 
May hinted at a period of rest — the full extent of 
it was not disclosed — Foster nodded tolerantly, 
Japhet said times were critical, and the rest declared 
that they would not flog a willing horse, but knew 
that Mr. Quisantd would do his duty. Unques- 
24 365 


QUISANTE 

tionably Henstead’s effect was bad, both for the 
compromise and for Quisante. Minute by minute 
May saw how the old fascination grew on him, how 
more and more he forgot that this was to be the 
last effort, that it was an end, not a beginning. 
He gave pledges of action, he would not positively 
decline engagements, he talked as though he would 
be in his place in Parliament throughout the session. 
While doing all this he avoided meeting her eye ; 
he would have found nothing worse than pity 
touched with amusement. But he kept declaring 
to her, when they had a chance of being alone, that 
he was loyal to their compact. “ Though it’s pretty 
hard,” he added with a renewal of his bitterness 
against the fate that constrained him. 

“We ought never to have come,” she said. “ It 
makes it worse. I wish we hadn’t.” 

“Wait till you’ve heard me to-morrow night,” 
he whispered, pressing her hand and looking into 
her eyes with the glee of anticipated triumph. 

He was going to make a great speech, she knew 
that very well ; there were all the signs about him, 
the glee, the pride, the occasional absence of mind, 
the frequent appeal for sympathy, the need of a 
confidence to answer and confirm his own. Such a 
mood, in spite of its element of childishness, was yet 
a good one with him. It raised him above pettiness 
and made him impatient of old Foster’s cunning 
little devices for capturing an enemy or confirming 
the allegiance of a doubtful friend. He had for the 
time forgotten himself in his work, the position in 
36 6 


THE QUIET LIFE TO-MORROW 


what he meant to do with it ; he would have de- 
livered that speech now if the price had been the 
loss of his seat ; whatever the price was, that speech 
now would have its way, all of it, whole and un- 
impaired, even the passage on which Foster was 
consulted with the result that its suppression was 
declared imperative in view of Japhet Williams’ 
feelings. “ Damn Japhet Williams,” said Quisante 
with a laugh, and Quisante’s wife found herself 
wishing that he would “ damn ” a few more men 
and things. It was just the habit that he wanted, 
just the thing that Marchmont and Dick Benyon 
and men like them had. Oh, if he could win and 
keep it ! 

“ He must consider local feeling,” said old Foster, 
pinching a fat chin in fear and doubt. 

“ No, he needn’t, no, he needn’t now,” she cried. 
“He’ll carry it with him, whatever he does now. 
Don’t you see ? He can take them all with him 
now. Wait till you’ve heard him to-morrow 
night ! ” 

Here was happiness for her and for him, but 
where else? Not in the compromise, not in the 
year of quiet. It seemed to be for this that they 
had come together, in this that they could help one 
another, feel with one another, be really at one. 
And this could not be. The tears stood in May 
Quisante’s eyes as she turned away from the pleas- 
ant shrewd old schemer ; his picture should stand 
no more on the mantelpiece. But now it seemed 
again strange and incredible that this, the great 
367 


QUISANTE 

career, could not be ; Aunt Maria’s was the creed 
for a time like this. 

The great night came, and a great crowd in the 
Corn Exchange. Old Foster was in the chair and 
the place seemed full of familiar faces ; the butcher 
who was troubled about slaughter-houses sat side 
by side with the man who was uneasy about his 
deceased wife’s sister ; Japhet Williams was on the 
platform and his men sat in close ranks at the back 
of the hall, they and Dunn’s contingent hard-by 
smoking their pipes as the custom was at Henstead. 
There were other faces, not so usual; for far away, 
in a purposely chosen obscurity, May saw Weston 
Marchmont and the Dean of St. Neot’s. The 
Mildmays themselves could not be present, but 
these two had come over from Moors End and sat 
there now, the Dean beaming in anticipation of a 
treat, Marchmont with a rather supercilious smile 
and an air of weariness. May could not catch their 
eyes but she felt glad to have them there ; it was 
always pleasant to her that her friends should see 
Quisante when he was at his best, and he was going 
to be at his best to-night. 

“We are rejoiced to welcome our Member back 
among us in good health and strength again,” old 
Foster began, quite in the Aunt Maria style, and he 
went on to describe the grief caused by Quisante’s 
illness and the joy now felt at the prospect of his 
being able to render services to his Queen, his coun- 
try, and his constituency no less long than valuable 
and brilliant. Quisante listened with a smile, gently 
368 


THE QUIET LIFE TO-MORROW 


tapping the table with his fingers. May turned 
from him to seek again her friends’ faces in the hall ; 
this time she met their gaze ; they were both look- 
ing at her with pitying eyes ; the instant they saw 
her glance, they avoided it. What did that mean ? 
It meant that they were not of Aunt Maria’s party. 
The kindly compassionate look of those two men 
went to her heart; it brought back reality and 
pierced through the pretence, the grand pretence, 
which everybody, herself included, had been weav- 
ing. An impulse of fear laid hold of her ; involun- 
tarily she put out her hand towards Foster who 
had just finished his speech and was sitting down. 
She meant to tell him to stop the meeting, to send 
the people home, to help her to persuade Quisante 
to go back to the hotel and not to speak. Foster 
looked round to see what she wanted, but at the 
moment Quisante was already on his feet. “ It’s 
nothing,” May whispered, withdrawing her hand. 
It was too late now, the thing must go forward 
now, whatever the end of it might be, whatever the 
friendly pity of those eyes might seem to say. To- 
morrow quiet would begin ; but she had a new, 
strange, intense terror of to-night. 

This feeling lasted through the early part of Qui- 
sante’s speech, when he was still in a quiet vein and 
showed some signs of physical weakness. But as he 
went on it vanished and in its place came the old 
faith and the old illusion. For he gathered force, 
he put out his strength, he exhaled vitality. Again 
she sought her friends’ faces and marked with joy 


QUISANTE 

and triumph that their eyes were now set on the 
speaker and their attention held firmly, as the fine 
resonant voice filled the building and seemed to re- 
sent the confinement of its walls, or even more 
when a whisper, heard only by a miracle as she 
thought, thrilled even the most distant listener. 
The speech was being all that it had been going to 
be, his confidence and hers were to be justified. 
The pronouncement that the country waited for 
was coming, the fighting men were to get the lead 
they wanted, the attack was sounded, the battle 
w T as being opened to the sound of a trumpet-call. 
May leant forward, listening. A period reached its 
close, and applause delayed the beginning of the 
next. Quisante glanced round and saw his wife ; 
their eyes met; a slow smile came on his lips, a 
smile of great delight. Once more her heart beat 
and her eyes gleamed for him, once more she would 
be no man’s if she could not be his. His air was 
gay and his face joyful as, the next minute, he 
threw himself into a flood of eloquence where in- 
dignation mingled with ridicule; he made men 
doubt whether they must laugh or fight. Now 
he had all that he desired ; men hung on his 
words, and she sat by, and saw, and felt, and 
shared. 

At the next pause, when the cheering again im- 
posed a momentary silence, the Dean turned to 
Marchmont, raising his hands and dropping them 
again. 

“ Yes, he can do it,” said Marchmont in a curi- 
370 


THE QUIET LIFE TO-MORROW 


ous tone ; envy and scorn and admiration all seemed 
to find expression. 

“ Look at her ! ” whispered the Dean, but this 
time Marchmont made no answer. He had been 
looking at her, and knew now why she had tied 
her life to Alexander Quisante’s. 

“ If I could do it like that I couldn’t stop doing 
it,” said the Dean. 

“ He never will as long as he lives,” answered 
Marchmont with a shrug of his shoulders. 

“ But he won’t live ? ” whispered the Dean. 
“You mean that ? ” 

The applause ended ; there was no need for 
Marchmont to answer, even if he could have 
found an answer. Quisante took up his work 
again. He was near the end now, an hour and a 
quarter had passed. May’s eyes never left him; 
he was going to get through, she thought, and she 
had no thought now of the compromise or the 
year of quiet, no thought except of his triumph 
that to-morrow would ring through the land. He 
paused an instant, whether in faltering or for effect 
she could not tell, and then began his peroration. 
It was short, but he gave every word slowly, apart, 
as it were in a place of its own, in the sure and 
superb confidence that every word had its own 
office, its own weight, and its own effect. But 
before he ended there came one interruption. 
Suddenly, as though moved by an impulse foreign 
to himself, old Foster pushed back his chair and 
rose to his feet ; after an instant the whole audi- 
371 


QUISANTE 

ence imitated him. Quisante paused and looked 
round ; again he smiled ; then, taking a step for- 
ward to clear himself of those who surrounded him, 
he went on. Thus he ended his speech, he stand- 
ing, to men and women one and all standing about 
and before him. 

“ I never saw such a thing,” whispered the Dean 
of St. Neot’s. But his words were lost in the 
cheers, and Weston Marchmont’s “Bravo” rang 
out so loud that May Quisante heard it on the 
platform and bent forward to kiss her hand to 
him. 

In the tea-room, to which all the important per- 
sons withdrew after the meeting, festivity reigned. 
Quisante was surrounded by admirers, busy listen- 
ing to compliments and congratulations, and re- 
ceiving the advice of the local wise men. May did 
not attempt to get near him, but surrendered her- 
self to a like process. Old Foster came up to her 
and shook hands, saying, “ I’m proud to have had 
a hand in making Mr. Quisante member for Hen- 
stead. You were right too; he can say what he 
likes now.” 

Then came Japhet Williams’ thin voice. “ I 
hope it won’t be many days before Mr. Quisante 
tells the House of Commons what he’s told us to- 
night.” 

Should she say that he would not tell anything 
to the House of Commons for many days, prob- 
ably not ever, that his voice would not be heard 
there? They would not believe her, she hardly 
372 


THE QUIET LIFE TO-MORROW 


would believe herself. In that hour illness and re- 
tirement seemed dim and distant, unreal and a 
little ludicrous. She abandoned herself to the 
temptation pressed upon her and talked as though 
her husband were to lead all through the campaign 
that he had opened. 

“ I never saw him looking better in my life,” 
said Foster. 

As he spoke a short thick-set man with grey hair 
pushed by him. Old Foster caught him by the 
wrist, crying with a laugh, “ Why, Doctor, what 
are you doing here ? You’re one of the enemy! ” 

“ I came to hear the speech.” 

“ A good ’un, eh? ” 

“ Never mind the speech. Take me over to Mr. 
Quisante — now, directly.” 

“ What for?” 

“ He must go home.” 

“ Go home ? Nonsense. He’s all right.” 

Dr. Tillman wrenched his hand away, shook his 
head scornfully, and started across the room towards 
where Quisante was. May laid her hand on old 
Foster’s arm. 

“ What did he say? Does he think my husband 
ill?” 

“ I don’t know. It’s all nonsense.” 

Another voice broke in. 

“ A triumph, Lady May, a triumph indeed ! ” 

She turned to find the Dean and Marchmont 
close behind her, and the Dean holding out his 
hand as he spoke. 


373 


QUISANTE 

“Yes, yes,” she said hurriedly and uncom- 
fortably. “ It was fine, wasn’t it ? ” 

“ It was magnificent,” said Marchmont. 

“ Thanks, thanks.” Her tone was still hurried, 
absent, ungracious. The two looked at her in 
surprise. Where was the radiance of triumph 
that had lit up her face as she signalled to them 
from the platform? They had expected to find 
her full of the speech and had been prepared to 
give her joy by the warmth and sincerity of their 
praise. 

“ What’s the matter ? ” whispered Marchmont. 

“Do you see that short man, the one with 
grey hair, trying to get near Alexander? It’s 
the doctor — Dr. Tillman. He can’t get near 
Alexander.” 

“ What does he want ? ” 

“ I don’t know. He thinks he ought to go 
home. He thinks — Ah, now he’s getting to him! 
Look ! He’s speaking to him now ! ” 

They saw the doctor come up to Quisante and 
Quisante smile as he waited for the visitor to in- 
troduce himself. The doctor began to speak 
quickly and energetically. “ Oh, thank you very 
much, but I’m all right,” came suddenly in loud 
clear tones from Quisante. The doctor spoke 
again. Quisante shook his head, laughing merrily. 
Marchmont looked at May ; her eyes were on her 
husband and they were full of fear. “I’d forgotten,” 
he heard her murmur. She turned to him with an 
imploring air. “ He won’t listen,” she said. 

374 


THE QUIET LIFE TO-MORROW 

A burst of laughter came from Quisant^’s group ; 
he had made some joke and they all applauded him. 
Tillman stood for a moment longer before him, then 
gave a queer jerk of his head, and turned sharp 
round on his heel. He came back towards where 
she stood. She took a step forward and thus crossed 
his path, Marchmont and the Dean standing on 
either side of her. 

“You remember me, Dr. Tillman? ’’she asked. 
“ I’m Mr. Quisante’s wife, you know.” 

He stood still, looking at her angrily from under 
his bushy eyebrows. 

“ Take him home then,” he said sharply. “ It 
was madness to let him come here at all. You’re 
flying in the face of the advice you’ve had. Oh, I 
know about it. Let me tell you, you’re very lucky 
to have got through so far.” 

“ We — we’re through all right now,” she said. 

“Are you? I hope so. The man’s in a high 
state of excitement now, and high states of excite- 
ment aren’t good for him.” He paused and added 
impatiently, “ Have you no influence over him ? 
Can none of you do anything with him ? ” 

“ He won’t like it if I go to him,” May whispered. 

“I’ll go,” said the Dean, stepping forward. 

“ Yes,” said Tillman, “ go and tell him Lady May 
Quisante wants him.” 

The Dean started off on his errand. The doc- 
tor’s manner grew a little gentler. 

“You couldn’t be expected to know,” he said. 
“ But in a thing like this you mustn’t think he’s all 
375 


QUISANTE 

right because he looks all right. He’ll look his best 
just at the time when there’s most — well, when he 
isn’t. I hope he’s going to keep quiet after this ? ” 

“ Yes, yes. At least we’ve arranged that. W es- 
ton, do go and bring him to me.” 

“ Look, he’s coming now with the Dean.” 

Quisante’s group opened, and he began to move 
towards them. But at every step somebody 
stopped him, to shake hands and to say a few words 
of thanks or praise. The Dean kept urging him on 
gently, but he would not be hurried. 

“Now take him straight home,” said Tillman. 
“ Good-night.” And hardly waiting for May’s bow 
he turned away and disappeared among the throng 
that was making for the door. 

Quisante, at last escaping from his admirers, came 
up to his wife. His eyes were very bright, and he 
ran to her, holding out both his hands. She put 
hers in his and said, “We must go home. You’ll 
be worn out.” 

“ Worn out? Not I ! But you look worn out. 
Come along. Ah, Marchmont, this is a compli- 
ment indeed.” 

They were almost alone in the room now. May 
took her husband’s arm and they walked thus to- 
gether. 

“ Are you pleased ? ” he whispered. 

“ Am I pleased ! ” she said with the laugh he 
knew and an upward glance of her eyes. Quisante 
himself laughed and drew himself to his full height, 
carrying his head defiantly. For though he sought 
376 


THE QUIET LIFE TO-MORROW 


and loved to please all, it was pleasing her that had 
been foremost in his mind that night. He had re- 
membered the boast he made on Duty Hill ; now 
it was justified, and he had once again tasted his 
sweetest pleasure. 

They had to wait in an ante-room while their car- 
riage was sent for. Here the Dean and Marchmont 
joined them again. They were there when old 
Foster rushed in in great excitement. 

“The whole town’s in the square,” he cried. 
“ There’s never been anything like it in Henstead. 
You’ll say just a word to them from the steps, sir? 
Only a word ! They’re all waiting there for you. 
You’ll say just a word ? I’ll be back in an instant.” 
And he bustled out again. 

Quisante walked across to a window that opened 
on to the Market Square. He looked out, then 
turned and beckoned to his wife. The whole town 
seemed to be in the square, as Foster said, and the 
people caught sight of him as he stood in the window 
with the lighted room behind him. They broke into 
loud cheering. Quisante bowed to them. Then a 
sudden short shiver seemed to run through him ; he 
put his hand first to his side, then to his head. 

“ I feel queer,” he said to his wife. “ I think I — 
I won’t — I won’t speak any more. I feel so — so 
queer.” Her eyes were fixed on him now, and his 
on hers. He smiled and tapped his forehead lightly 
with his hand. “ It’s nothing,” he said. “ You were 
pleased, weren’t you, to-night ? ” Again he put his 
hands in hers. She found no word to say and they 
377 


QUISANTE 

stood like this for a moment. The cheers ceased, 
the crowd outside was puzzled. Marchmont j umped 
up from his chair and walked forward hastily. 

“ Anything wrong ? ” he asked. 

Neither heeded him. May’s eyes were set in ter- 
ror on her husband’s face ; for now she was hold- 
ing him up by the power of her hands gripped in 
his ; without them he would fall. Nay, he would 
fall now! 

He spoke in a low thick voice. “ It’s come,” he 
said, <6 it’s come.” And he sank back into Weston 
Marchmont’s arms, his wife letting go his hands 
and standing rigid. 

Old Foster ran in again, calling, “ Are you ready, 
sir ? ” He found his answer. Alexander Quisante 
would speak no more in Henstead. He was leaning 
against Marchmont, breathing heavily and with sore 
difficulty. May went to him ; she was very white 
and very calm ; she took his hand and kissed it. 

“ I — I — I spoke well ? ” he muttered. “ Didn’t 
I? ” 

“ Very very finely, Alexander.” 

“ They were — were all wrong in saying I couldn’t 
do it,” he murmured. He shivered again and then 
was still. The Dean had brought a chair and they 
put him in it. But he moved no more. May looked 
at old Foster who stood by, his face wrung with 
helpless distress and consternation. 

“ We’ve killed him among us, I and you and the 
people out there,” she said. 


378 


CHAPTER XXI 


A RELICT 

“Yes, I asked her,” said Weston Marchmont, 
“but — Well, I don’t think she’d mind you read- 
ing her letter, and I should rather like you to.” 
He flung it across the table to Dick Benyon. 
“ I half see what she means,” said he, lighting 
a cigarette. 

Dick took the letter with an impatient frown. 
<fi I don’t,” he said, as he settled himself to read it. 

“ My dear Friend, I have thought it over, many 
times, in many different moods, and in all of them 
I have always wanted to do what you ask. Not for 
your sake, not because you ask me, but for my own. 
I think I should be very happy, and as you know I 
have never yet been very happy. I wasn’t while my 
husband was alive. Imagine my finding side by side 
in his desk the doctor’s letter saying it was certain 
death to go to Henstead and that report of Professor 
Maturin’s which he suppressed and told me had been 
destroyed. That brought him back to me just as 
he was. With you I think I should be happy. I 
should never be afraid, I should never be ashamed. 
What fear and what shame I used to feel ! I write 
very openly to you about myself and about him ; if 
I were answering as you wish, I would not say a 
379 


QUISANTE 

word against him. But I can’t. That’s just the 
feeling. You tell me I am free, that two years have 
gone by, that I might find a new life for myself, that 
you love me. I know it all, but except the last none 
of it sounds true. You know that once I thought 
about being free and that then you were in my 
thoughts. Who should be, if you were not ? Ex- 
cept him and you I have never thought of any man. 
And I want to come to you now. He is too strong 
for me. Is it really two years ago ? Surely not ! I 
seem still to hear his speech, and still to see him fall 
into your arms. I should always hear him, and 
always see that. I’m afraid you won’t understand 
me, least of all when I say I don’t feel sure that I 
want him back. That would mean the fear and the 
shame again. But he was so marvellous. How 
right he was ! They followed the lead he gave 
them at Henstead ; and even you, dear recluse, know 
that there was a change of Government last year. 
And I am quite rich out of the Alethea. For he 
was right and the poor Professor, who was supposed 
to know all about it, was absolutely, utterly, hope- 
lessly wrong. And the Crusade’s come to nothing, 
and — and so on. 

“ I wish I was convincing you ; but I never did. 
You didn’t understand why I married him, why in 
face of everything I behaved pretty well to him, 
why his death left everything blank to me. Nobody 
quite understood, except old Aunt Maria who just 
quietly died as soon as he was gone. And you’ll 
understand me no better now. I resent the way the 
380 


A RELICT 


world forgets him. There seems nothing of him 
left. My little girl is all Gaston ; she lives with 
Gastons, she has the Gaston face and the Gaston 
ways. She’s not a bit Quisante ; she’s nothing of 
him, nothing that he has left behind. If we’d had 
a son, a boy like him, I might feel differently. But, 
as it is, what’s left ? Only me. I am left, and I am 
not altogether a Gaston now, though it’s the Gaston 
and nothing else that you like. No, I’m not all 
Gaston now. I’ve become Quisante in part — not in 
every way, or I shouldn’t have felt as I did when I 
found the Professor’s report. But he has laid hold 
of me, and he doesn’t let go. I can’t help thinking 
that he needn’t have died except on my account. 
You feel sore that I don’t love you, not as you want 
me to. He was sore too because I didn’t love him ; 
and since he couldn’t make me love him, he had to 
make me wonder at him ; he was doing that when 
he died. So I feel that I can’t do anything to 
blot him out, and that I must stay Quisante, some- 
body bearing his name, representing him, keeping 
him in a way alive, being still his and not anybody 
else’s. 

“For I still feel his and I still feel him alive. 
You can love people, and then forget them, and love 
somebody else ; or love somebody else without for- 
getting. Love is simple and gentle and, I suppose, 
gives way. Alexander doesn’t give way. I shall 
hurt you now, I’m afraid, but I must say it. After 
him there can be no other man for me. I think 
I’m sorry I ever married him, for I could have 

25 381 


QUISANTE 

loved somebody else and yet looked on at him. 
Or couldn’t I ? You’ll say I couldn’t. Anyhow, 
as it is, I’ve come too near to him, seen too much 
of him, become too much a part of him. You 
might think me mad if I told you he often seemed 
to be with me and that I’m not frightened, but ad- 
mire and laugh as I used; I needn’t fear any more. 
So it is ; and since it is so, how can I come to you? 
What is it they call widows on tombstones and in 
the Times ? Relicts, isn’t it ? I’m literally his rel- 
ict, something he’s left behind. As I say, the only 
thing. He can’t come back for me, I suppose. 
But I feel as if he’d pick me up somewhere some 
time, and we should begin over again, and go on 
together. Where to I don’t know. I never knew 
where he would end by taking me to. And you, 
dear friend, mustn’t make his relict your wife. It’s 
not right for you, it wouldn’t be right for me. 
We should pretend that nothing had happened, 
that I’d made a mistake, that it was luckily and 
happily over, and that I was doing now what I 
ought to have done in the beginning. All that’s 
quite false. I suppose everybody has one great 
thing to do in life, one thing that determines what 
they’re to be and how they’re to end. I did my 
great thing, for good or evil, when I became his 
wife. I can’t undo it or go back on it, I can’t be- 
come what I was before I did it. I can’t be now 
what you think me and wish me to be. His 
stamp is on me. 

“ I write very sadly; for I didn’t love him. And 

382 


A RELICT 


now I can love nobody. I shall never quite know 
what that means. Or is it possible that I loved 
him without knowing it, and hated him sometimes 
just because of that ? I mean, felt so terribly the 
times when he was — well, what you know he was 
sometimes. I find no answer to that. It never 
was what I thought love meant, what they tell you 
it means. But if love can mean sinking yourself 
in another person, living in and through him, 
meaning him when you say life, then I did love 
him. At any rate, whatever it was, there it is. 
Yet I’m not very unhappy. I have a feeling — it 
will seem strange to you, like all my feelings — that 
I have had a great share in something great, that 
without me he wouldn’t have been what he was, 
that I gave as well as took, and brought my part 
into the common stock. We did odd things, he 
and I in our partnership, things never to be told. 
My poor cheeks burn still, and you remember that 
I cried. But we did great things too, he and I, 
and at the end we were for a little while together 
in heart. It wouldn’t have lasted ? Perhaps not. 
As it was it lasted long enough — till 4 it came,’ as 
he said, and he died asking me to tell him that he 
had spoken well. I’m very glad he knew that I 
thought he had spoken well. 

“ So out of this rambling letter comes the end of 
it. Be kind to me, be my friend, and be somebody 
else’s lover, dear Weston. For I am spoilt for 
you. ‘ Her mad folly ’ — that was what you thought 
it. Well, it isn’t ended, not even death has ended 
383 


QUISANTE 

it. He reaches me still from where he is — Ah, 
and what is he doing ? I can’t think of him doing 
nothing. Shall I hear of all he’s done some day ? 
Will he tell me himself, and watch my lips and 
my eyes as I listen to him ? I don’t know. These 
are dreams, and perhaps I wouldn’t have them 
come true ; for he might do dreadful things again. 
But I can’t marry you. For to me he is not dead, 
he lives still, and I am his. I can as little say 
whether I like it as I could while he was here. 
But now, as then, it is so ; whether I like it is lit- 
tle ; it is what has come to me, my lot, my place, 
my fate, the end of me, the first and last word 
about me. And — yes — I am content to have it so. 
He loved me very much, and he was a very great 
man. You’ll wonder again, but I’m a proud wom- 
an among women, Weston dear. Good-bye.” 

Dick Benyon laid down the letter, and pushed it 
back to Weston Marchmont. 

“ Yes, I see,” said he. 


THE END. 


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OCT S 1903 







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OCT f 3 1903 

































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